Farm-bill deal would cut food stamps by 1%

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

A House plan to make major cuts to food stamps would be scaled back under a bipartisan agreement on a massive farm bill, a near end to a more than two-year fight that has threatened to hurt rural lawmakers in an election year.

The measure announced Monday by the House and Senate Agriculture committees preserves food-stamp benefits for most Americans who receive them and continues generous subsidies for farmers. The House is expected to vote on the bill Wednesday, with the Senate following shortly after.

The compromise was expected to cut food stamps by about $800 million a year, or around 1 percent. The House in September passed legislation cutting 5 percent from the $80 billion-a-year program. The House bill also would have allowed states to implement broad new work requirements for food-stamp recipients. That has been scaled back to a test program in 10 states.

The Democratic-led Senate had twice passed a bill with only $400 million in annual food-stamp cuts, and had signaled it would not go much higher. The White House had threatened to veto the House level of food-stamp cuts.

The final bill released Monday would cost almost $100 billion a year over five years, with a cut of around $2.3 billion a year overall from current spending.

Republican House leaders said they would support the deal. After wavering for several years, the GOP leaders were seeking to put the long-stalled bill behind them and build on the success of a bipartisan budget passed earlier this month.