An Urban's Rural View

Disagreements over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, aren't the only obstacle to passing a farm bill this year. They may not even be the most important one.

They are, though, among the most partisan of farm-bill disagreements. And their impact is big; SNAP is far and away the largest farm-bill program, accounting for more than 75% of the spending.

This year House Republicans are proposing to help pay for increased payments to farmers by taking around $30 billion from SNAP over 10 years. Farm bills are five-year laws, but they are scored for costs over 10 years. Food-stamp benefits wouldn't go down, but they also wouldn't go up as much as they might have had the president retained the discretion the 2018 farm bill gave him.

In an inflationary environment like today's, the Democrats call this a cut. They say they won't agree to any food-stamp cuts.

It makes sense that the Republicans, the party of rural America, propose taking from SNAP to pay farmers -- and that the Democrats, the party of urban America, oppose it. But the disagreement also reflects the parties' principles. Reining in the welfare state has always been a Republican priority, just as providing for the poor has always been a Democratic one.

With principles at stake, could either side compromise? What often prompts a willingness to compromise is being unlikely to prevail. Until recently the power dynamics favored the Democrats. The Republican House can pass SNAP cuts, but they won't fly in the Democratic Senate and the Democratic president has the veto.

Now, though, the Republicans have reason to hope for getting control of both houses of Congress and the presidency in the November election. If that happens, they would be able to pass a farm bill in the next Congress that slashes SNAP even deeper. There's less pressure on the Republicans to settle.

But there are conflicting pressures. Groups lobbying for big farmers want a farm bill now. As DTN's Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton pointed out, passing a farm bill in this Congress would give farmers higher reference prices in 2025. Failing to pass it would delay that benefit until at least 2026. (https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

More than just the party of rural America, the Republicans are the party of big agriculture, representing 81 of the top 100 Congressional districts measured by agricultural sales. They care about what commercial farmers think.

Wearing their party-of-rural-America hat, the Republicans should also pay attention to a point that doesn't get enough attention: Food insecurity is as much a rural problem as an urban problem.

Naturally the urban hungry outnumber the rural hungry; many more people live in the cities than the country. But consider:

-- In an October 2023 paper by USDA's Economic Research Service, 14.7% of households outside metropolitan areas were food insecure compared with 12.5% inside metropolitan areas. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/…)

-- The wife of an Iowa farmer who volunteers at a food bank in a nearby town of 1,500 says two years ago, 10 families were relying on the food bank. Today the number is 50.

-- According to the non-profit group Feeding America, nine out of 10 American counties with the highest food-insecurity rates are rural. (https://www.feedingamerica.org/…)

-- Wages in rural America tend to be lower, which is why a good many rural SNAP recipients are people with full-time jobs, like the Oklahoma mother with three teenagers profiled recently by the Washington Post. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…)

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24.1% of 2020 adult SNAP recipients worked every month and another 14.3% worked some months. (https://www.census.gov/…) While Republicans want SNAP to encourage work and discourage reliance on the government, many SNAP recipients end up working AND relying on the government.

These points don't seem to sway Republicans. A House Republican staffer attacked Feeding America and other groups advocating a more generous food-stamp program as "hunger weirdos," claiming they use poor people as props and only care about keeping their cushy jobs. Putting aside the klutzy and needlessly offensive choice of words, is there anything to the charge?

According to Feeding America's publicly disclosed tax return, it paid six-figure salaries to 18 executives in 2022; its CEO made close to a million dollars. (https://www.feedingamerica.org/…).

Six-figure salaries, though, are common in big, complicated organizations and Feeding America's revenue was close to $5 billion.

It used that revenue to provide cash and food to more than 240 food banks across the country. (The list of food banks and the amounts to each take up several pages of the tax return.) Forbes magazine says 98% of Feeding America's total expenses went to fulfilling the group's charitable purpose, well above the 87% national average. (https://www.forbes.com/…)

In May, the University of Notre Dame gave Feeding America's CEO, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the Laetare Award, which it says is the most prestigious award given to American Catholics. (https://laetare.nd.edu/…)

I'll let you decide for yourself whether "hunger weirdos" was a fair comment.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanize@gmail.com

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