By Jim McLean
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, April 6 Congresswoman Nancy Boyda on Friday told attendees at a meeting held to discuss hunger issues that she would fight against a cut in the U.S. Food Stamps Program proposed by the Bush administration.
“The cuts that are in the president”s budget I can almost guarantee you will not be in the farm bill that we pass,” Boyda said.
The president has proposed a funding cut of $540 million in the food stamp program between 2008 and 2013, according to Kansas Action for Children, a non-profit advocacy group headquartered in Topeka.
Boyda, a first-term Democrat who represents the 2nd District, is a member of the House agriculture subcommittee that oversees nutrition programs. She said she supports “a modest increase” in funding for the food stamp program even though Congress is working under rules requiring any spending increases to be offset by decreases elsewhere in the budget.
KAC and other advocacy groups are lobbying members of the Kansas congressional delegation to reverse a 1996 decision to stop indexing food stamp benefits so that they keep pace with increases in the cost of living. Today, that decision is costing the average food stamp household approximately $37 a month in benefits, according to KAC.
Approximately 183,000 Kansans benefit from the food stamp program, 48 percent are children. The number of people receiving food stamps has increased by nearly 40 percent since 2002.
A report issued in March by the Kansas Food Security Task Force said 12 percent of Kansas households are classified as food insecure.
“The data now tells us that one in every eight (Kansas) households worry about food security,” said Barbara LaClair, a coordinator for the task force, when the report was released. “I think that”s surprising to most folks.”
One of the problems, the report said, is that only 65 percent of those eligible for food stamps are enrolled in the program.
Boyda said she planned to speak soon with Kansas Congressman Jerry Moran, a 1st District Republican who also serves on the nutrition subcommittee, about a bi-partisan strategy for increasing food stamp funding.
“I know he”ll have a heart for this too,” she said.
Boyda said among the strategies she is willing to consider is lowering limits on crop subsidy payments to wealthy farmers and using the savings to increase funding for the food stamp program.