Anti-Hunger Bill Cuts $14 Billion From Food Stamps

(Aug. 6) -- In a rare show of bipartisanship in Washington, the Senate voted unanimously to pass the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Among other things, the bill reauthorizes federal child nutrition programs, sets nutritional standards for food sold in schools and boosts reimbursement rates for school lunch programs.

All to the good, as far as food security efforts go. But in part to help pay for the program, the Senate also approved $14 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps.

"This is essentially robbing Peter to feed Peter's kids," J.C. Dwyer, state policy director for the Texas Food Bank Network, told AOL News. "These are the same families that rely on food stamps and child nutrition programs."

Senate Agriculture Committee chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said those SNAP dollars had already been threatened, and shifting them into child nutrition ensures that they will still be going to help feed hungry families.

"We were going to lose those dollars anyway. ... At least these dollars are going to feed children just like SNAP dollars would," Lincoln told Politico. "I certainly think it's much more practical, if we're going to rededicate those dollars, rededicate them to what they were intended to do."

Lincoln also argued that the funding that was cut wouldn't come into effect until 2013, giving the program "time to recoup."

Nevertheless, more than 1,400 nonprofit groups have signed a letter asking senators to reconsider the cuts, arguing that this rollback could be a devastating blow to families already reeling from the economic crisis.

Cutting the SNAP funds, the letter reads, "would return millions of families to the situation where their SNAP benefits typically run out in the third or early in the fourth week of the month. It would increase hunger."

If the cuts stand, by April 2014 the average food stamp allotment for an average family of three will drop $47 a month. For families who are counting every dollar, that money will have to come out of other expenses like rent, utilities and medicine.

Hunger in the U.S and abroad could also be exacerbated this year by environmental factors. Withering droughts, wildfires and floods in Eastern Europe have impacted wheat harvests to the point that Americans could see price increases for basic foods like bread and pasta.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama set a goal of eliminating childhood hunger in America by 2015. And SNAP received significant aid from the stimulus bill, intended as both a way to assist struggling families and to reinvigorate the economy.

According to the federal estimates, every dollar paid by the stimulus bill in food stamps generated $1.84 in economic activity. In the wake of the economic crisis, a record 40.8 million people, or approximately 13 out of 100 Americans, rely on food stamps.