The red-hot debate over cutting the federal budget deficit could literally spill into the nation?s supermarket aisles and onto its kitchen tables.
Food costs are now forecast to increase this year by a stunning 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent ? nearly double the core inflation rate ? while the food stamp program that helps more than 44 million Americans is facing a congressional chopping block.
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All of this has led policymakers to search for new ways to curb the rising costs, lawmakers to consider changes to the food stamp program and regulators to target speculation in the commodities markets.
The annual budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assurance Program has doubled since 2007 to $70 billion. And some lawmakers see runaway spending when the government is trying to trim more than $1 trillion from its expected debt load.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) unsuccessfully proposed an amendment last month that would have tightened eligibility requirements, arguing the explosive growth of the program over the past decade has most likely led to fraud and misuse.
?Responsible changes to the way the government operates this program will improve outcomes, help more people achieve the goal of financial independence and put an end to fraud,? he said Monday on the Senate floor. ?It is time to get serious. Denial must end. You can?t borrow your way out of debt. We are spending money we don?t have.?
Americans can qualify for food stamp benefits by using other federal programs, a process known as ?categorical eligibility? that Sessions wants to end.
And because state governments administer the federally funded program, there isn?t much of an incentive to investigate abuse, a Republican Senate aide told POLITICO.
Sessions favors a House Republican plan to devote $71 billion to food stamps next year, compared with the $80 billion championed by Senate Democrats.
Others view the increase as proof that the working poor need a government backstop, saying food stamps add value to the economy.
?This is clearly a moral issue,? said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). ?But it?s also an economic issue. For every dollar in food stamp costs, you get $1.79 back.?
The money benefits grocers, ?the truck driver who delivered the food, the warehouses that stored it, the plant that processed it and the farmer who produced the food,? Audrey Rowe, administrator of the Agriculture Department?s Food and Nutrition Service, told a congressional committee in July.
Charities and religious groups won?t be able to fill the chasm if food stamps are underfunded, said Jim Wallis, a noted author and theologian who runs the social justice organization Sojourners.
Only 6 percent of nutritional assistance comes from charities, so a similar-sized reduction in government funding would offset their efforts, he said.
?Churches are overstretched because their folks are struggling,? Wallis said. ?Neither party has made poverty or poor people a priority.?
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