WASHINGTON (ABP) — After pleading from prominent Baptists and other religious leaders, a Senate panel has declined to recommend major cuts in a federal program that subsidizes grocery purchases for the needy.
On an 11-9 vote Oct. 19, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a “budget reconciliation” plan to cut $3 billion from farm-subsidy programs and other federal entitlements. The food-stamp program — which falls under the committee's jurisdiction — had previously been one of the areas where committee Republicans were seeking to cut spending by as much as $574 million.
However, when Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the committee's chairman, presented his version of the legislation to the panel, it did not include any cuts to food stamps.
A large group of religious leaders had earlier urged Congress not to cut the program. In a Sept. 21 letter to every congressman and senator, the leaders acknowledged that the agriculture committees in both chambers were under a mandate to cut $3 billion from their budget.
Nonetheless, they said, “budget constraints do not release us from our obligation to care for poor and vulnerable people.”
The letter continued, “It would be a moral failure to take those cuts from the food-stamp program. The number of people experiencing hunger in the United States has been on the rise and our national nutrition programs are as important as they've ever been. The unprecedented destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina will force many more people to depend on the federal nutrition programs.”
Signers of the letter included leaders from Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, mainline Protestant and evangelical Protestant bodies. Among its Baptist signers were Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinator Daniel Vestal, American Baptist Churches General Secretary Roy Medley, Alliance of Baptists Executive Director Stan Hastey and Baptist World Aid Director Paul Montacute.
Two of the letter's signers held a conference call with reporters Oct. 18 to draw attention to the upcoming vote — as well as the prospects that the House Agriculture Committee may still recommend a cut of as much as $1 billion in funding food stamps.
“I'm a fiscal conservative — I do not like the fiscal recklessness of the last few years,” said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. “But to try to save a few million dollars … by taking away food-stamp benefits is not the way to do it.”
The cuts are in response to conservatives in Congress demanding that billions be cut from the federal budget to partially offset the billions in extra federal spending on the Iraq war and hurricane relief.
Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian and head of the anti-poverty group Call to Renewal, noted that, despite the budget strains, Congress already has separate plans to consider a further $70 billion in tax cuts later this year — on top of the trillions in tax cuts that have been approved since President Bush first took office in 2001.
“We must draw a line in the sand — a moral line in the sand against further service cuts for poor people and tax cuts for the wealthiest,” Wallis told reporters. “This is a moral issue now. This is a contradiction, and people around the country are feeling it.”
The food-stamp issue comes among wider debate regarding the total amount that will be cut from the federal budget. Another group of Christian leaders — including Hastey and leaders from several historically black Baptist denominations — sent a letter to members of Congress opposing an attempt in the House to cut federal programs by $50 billion.
The Senate has proposed $35 billion in cuts.
On the food-stamp issue, Wallis noted, opponents of cuts are not out of the woods yet. The bill now goes through the House Agriculture Committee, which could vote on it as early as the week of Oct. 24. That panel's chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has reportedly proposed as much as $1 billion in cuts to food stamps. “Sen. Chambliss has shown real moral leadership here, but this is far from over,” Wallis said.