WASHINGTON — 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. In 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 sought to cut spending by as much as $574 million. But when Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee’s chairman, presented his version of the legislation, it did not include cuts to food stamps.
Religious leaders had earlier urged Congress not to cut the program. In a Sept. 21 letter to every legislator, 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 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.
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