Esperanza Fonseca an Anti-hunger advocate calls for another 2023 farm bill that centers on the nutritional needs of all low-income and marginalized Americans.
Will SNAP Benefits Be Available Again In The Next Farm Bill? (PHOTO: Civil Eats)
Former SNAP Recipient Wants To Expanded Benefits This 2023 Farm Bill
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as food stamps, might become a pawn in the dispute over increasing the federal government debt limit. Moreover, Snap benefits provide more than 40 million people with food assistance but frequently winds up in political crosshairs.
As legislators embark on the 2023 Farm Bill, many Republicans are earlier again proposing SNAP cuts and hardened work requirements. This arrives together with the pandemic-era growth in benefits that have been eliminated in 32 states, affecting millions of food-insecure across the US.
Esperanza Fonseca shares her experience as a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipient and her reflections on what’s needed to change food-assistance policies to keep people from going hungry.
Furthermore, Fonseca is now advocating on behalf of resident physicians and their patients as an organizer with the Committee of Interns and Residents, the oldest and largest union working to improve the lives of resident physicians and the quality of healthcare in underserved communities, and she desires a 2023 Farm Bill that centers the nutritional needs of all low-income households and marginalized Americans.
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Lawmakers Are Debating!
President Biden expresses that he wants Congress to pass a “clean” debt limit growth that is, with nothing attached to it but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) demands spending cuts to put the federal government “on a path to a balanced budget” as his price for House Republican support. McCarthy says Republicans won’t push for cuts in Social Security or Medicare and, in light of what President Biden said in his State of the Union address and on-the-spot congressional reaction, neither party supports such cuts anyway.
No one, however, has promised not to cut SNAP, which will cost an estimated $153.9 billion in the fiscal year 2023 more than double the annual spending level before COVID-19. SNAP is now an inviting people for Republicans partly because the administration has mishandled the program.
To contain costs while protecting this vital program that serves 40 million people, the administration and Congress should manage SNAP through a bipartisan process via the 2023 farm bill rather than going to a debt limit standoff between the president and Speaker.
Nutritional assistance accounts for almost 80 percent of budgets allocated by the 2023 farm bill, and some legislators express it has extended too large, perhaps at the expenditure of the agricultural programs in the bill.
As the world’s richest country that’s a bit of a ridiculous discussion to be having. There’s more than enough profit generated to gain money toward food production and toward feeding everybody. Money is always never enough or too many resources being spent on feeding your population, especially in a country where, despite being a more developed nation, America still has several families who go to sleep hungry every night.
READ ALSO: USDA Selects Oklahoma Among The 5 States To Test SNAP Contactless Mobile Payments
