WASHINGTON—The stalled 2023 Farm Bill is finally seeing some movement in the U.S. House of Representatives after House Democrats allegedly collapsed negotiations over the amount of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) they say will be cut out of the legislative measure, According to a Republican member of the House of Representatives, who asked that we not use his or her name in this article, House Democrats have been stalling negotiations because they want SNAP (Food Stamps) benefits to go back to COVID-19 or Pandemic levels.
In other words, they want to increase Food Stamp benefits post-pandemic.
The temporary emergency allotments to SNAP ended on March 1, 2023. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, monthly benefits were increased by the Families First Coronaviras Response act, providing recipients addition grocery benefits to help mitigate the economic impacts they were enduring as result of the pandemic.
Last week, the House Agriculture Committee voted in favor of passing the “2024 Farm Bill.
The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 was passed by a bipartisan vote margin of 33 to 21.
Remember, this “2024 Farm Bill” is really the 2023 legislative measure.
Only four Democrats voted in favor of the measure.
Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL), who told The Floridian that he wanted to see a fair and balanced farm bill, voted against the bill.
Rep. Soto appears to have drawn the line when it came to cutting SNAP benefits, stating that he remains “deeply concerned about the cuts to food assistance this would cost Florida about $2.1 billion in food assistance over the next few years.”
Soto also stated SNAP will endure $30 billion in cuts in the House version of the bill.
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) voted “Yes” and released a statement that pointed out how difficult it was to pass the bill.
“The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 is the culmination of a lot of hard work and listening to producers from around the country. The crafting of this bill has been no easy endeavor, and we still have a long way to go in getting this across the finish line,” stated Rep. Cammack.
Cammack praised the win for Florida’s agriculture community.
“However, to secure so many critical wins in this base text for Florida farmers, ranchers, and producers is a big relief. Knowing the tremendous pressures our agriculture community has been under in the Sunshine State, it was said all along that Florida had both the most to lose and the most to gain in this bill and I am so glad that we came out on the favorable side of that equation,” she added.
Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who himself negotiated the 2018 Farm Bill when he was a member of Congress, recently said that Florida was not waiting around for the federal government to act, rather the state was ready to pick up the slack.
“The federal government is not going to move as fast as us,” said DeSantis.” So what we try to do in Florida is whatever we can do ourselves, we just wanna do it. I don’t want to leave our destiny in the hands of other people.”
Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Greg Casar (D-TX), where several of the House Democrats who voted against the passage of the Farm Bill in the House Agriculture Committee
This is a developing story…
