September 13, 2007
On September 30, 2007, the Farm Bill, which contains funding for Food Stamps, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) will expire. The debate over funding for the two bills has been marked with contention. The following highlight provides details of funding levels for both bills and resources to learn more information about the issues surrounding these two critical bills.
Every five years, Congress must reauthorize The Farm Bill which contains funding for Food Stamps and Agriculture. The House passed a version of the bill in July, increasing funding for the food stamp program, including a raise in the minimum food stamp allocation from $10 to $18. This increase would be the first increase for food stamps since the Farm Bill was introduced in the 1964. The Senate Agriculture Committee is currently attempting to pass its version of the Farm Bill. The Bush Administration has proposed to eliminate the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) which would eliminate funding for approximately 30,000 women and children under the age of 6 and 440,000 low-income seniors.
S-CHIP also expires at the end of the month. The House approved its version of the bill which would increase funding over the next five years by $50 billion to a total of $75 billion. This increase in funding would cover 5 million more children. The Senate's proposed version also increases funding by $35 billion over five years for a total of $60 billion to cover an estimated 3.2 million more children. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase funding by $4.8 billion over five years and has added several clauses that child advocates are concerned will decrease the number of children enrolled in the program. For example, all states must enroll 95% of all eligible children below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) before accepting families with higher incomes.
Both bills are expected to be extended, but when passage of the final bills is expected unknown at this time.
For more information about both bills - please click on one of the below links
American Public Health Association
Policy Statement on the Farm Bill
http://www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/default.htm?id=1342
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
http://www.cbpp.org/pubs/fa.htm
FRAC Farm Bill Legislative Action Center
http://www.frac.org/Legislative/farmBill2007/alerts/08.08.07.html
Kaiser Family Foundation
http://www.kff.org/medicaid/index.cfm
Public Health Action Center
http://www.publichealthaction.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=1
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