Senate Republicans are battling over whether a bill reauthorizing the nation’s food stamp program should boost work requirements for recipients.
The Senate-passed farm bill reauthorizes agriculture and nutrition assistance programs for five years. But the legislation does not include House-passed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps, that would broaden work requirements and make it more difficult for states to waive them.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Thursday called on negotiators working on a House-Senate compromise to include the work requirements in the final version, going against Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.
“I think having the work provisions is really important,” Cornyn told reporters Thursday. “Able-bodied people, people who can’t work, can train, can do community service. People who can’t should be exempted from that. I think the House got that right.”
He added, “I hope they move closer in the House’s direction.”
But Roberts has advocated for the Senate-passed version of the food stamp reauthorization provision. He and others worry that enhanced work requirements are guaranteed to draw Democratic opposition and even GOP opponents who fear backlash in their states.
“We think we have a pretty good bill,” Roberts said of the Senate-authored version, which passed the upper chamber by a vote of 86-11 in June.
“It’s much more pertinent to what we all want to do which is make sure the help is going to people who need it but also do the necessary reforms,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner. “That will be a subject we have to come to agreement on. We haven’t yet.”
Federal law already imposes work requirements on many able-bodied food stamp recipients. More than 80 percent of the $867 billion farm bill is dedicated to the food stamp program, and about 42 million people were enrolled in the program in 2017, a decrease of about 2 million from 2016.
The House version of the farm bill makes more significant reforms to the system. It widens the pool of those considered eligible for work requirements and makes it much harder for states to waive the rules, which House GOP aides said was happening through the manipulation of unemployment data.
The House version also shifts some food stamp funding to worker training programs, a move Democrats oppose.
Passing the food stamp reforms into law are a top goal of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a longtime advocate of welfare reform, and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, Cornyn’s Texas colleague and author of the food stamp changes.
“He put together some very commonsense work requirements that were based on broad stakeholder input,” Cornyn said of Conaway on Thursday in a Senate floor speech. “During this record of low unemployment across the nation, it’s not unreasonable to try to use this opportunity, which comes only once every five years, to take a look and ensure that our federal dollars are being spent wisely.”
The House bill would add more to the work rolls by requiring the able-bodied to work, receive training or volunteer unless they have a child aged six or younger. Current law waives those recipients from the requirement if they have children ten or younger.
The House bill raises the work-eligible age limit from 50 to 60.
“That has raised some dust,” Roberts said, whose Senate bill includes provisions aimed at curbing food stamp fraud.
President Trump is also pushing Roberts to broaden work requirements even more. But the Senate, unlike the House, must have bipartisan support to pass the final version of the bill. The upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold means at least ten Democrats will be needed to clear the legislation for President Trump’s signature.
Still, Roberts told Cornyn in a recent Senate floor exchange the group of senators on the panel working out a compromise between the House and Senate version “will study” the House version, including changes to the work requirements.
Roberts planned a phone conference late Thursday with the top four House and Senate negotiators. More work is planned in the coming weeks to hammer out a final deal “ASAP,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner.
“It is just a matter of degree,” Roberts said. “We want to provide integrity to that program. We want it to work and have it go to the people who truly need it, and we have tried very hard to accomplish that.”
