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USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the Nation’s largest food assistance program. In fiscal year 2018, SNAP served an average 40.3 million people per month and issued $60.9 billion in benefits to be spent in food stores authorized to accept SNAP benefits. The primary goal of SNAP is to provide low-income households with additional rCaesources for buying food.

But SNAP also serves as an automatic stabilizer for the economy. For example, during an economic downturn, when unemployment increases and wages fall, more individuals become eligible for SNAP and enroll in the program. As SNAP participants spend this increased Federal assistance, income is generated for those involved in producing, transporting, and marketing the food and other goods purchased by SNAP recipients. The impact of this increased spending by SNAP households “multiplies” throughout the economy as the businesses supplying the food and other goods—and their employees—have additional funds to make purchases of their own. This multiplier effect on the economy may extend well beyond the initial money provided to SNAP participants.

Some of the farm bill’s funds also go towards conservation programs, which have traditionally paid farmers not to farm. Many farms contain land near waterways or on steep slopes that are highly vulnerable to erosion, for example, and giving farmers funds in exchange for an agreement that they won’t farm them helps stabilize soils. Similar programs exist for protecting grassland and wetland habitat. There are also a number of “working lands” conservation programs that help farmers fund projects that reduce their environmental footprint, like cover cropping, adopting no-till or putting better manure management plans into place. Many of these programs have benefits to climate: leaving land undisturbed helps sequester carbon in soil, and the list of approved projects under working lands conservation programs has expanded to include more climate-oriented projects in recent years. But these are financially small programs that focus most explicitly on soil retention and water quality; by and large, climate change adaptation and mitigation have been largely ignored in the farm bill. As climate advocates argue, many of the bill’s usual provisions actually double down on emissions intensive farming methods, adding incentives for producers to get even bigger whether they’re growing row crops or raising animals in a factory farm setting. But beyond the opportunity to correct some of these incentives, advocates for sustainable agriculture say a new approach to the farm bill could have big benefits for climate-smart agriculture and the people who practice it. Doing so, however, would require some major policy shifts away from big agribusiness interests and towards small farmers, farmworkers and other more marginalized voices within the food system.

While many conventional agricultural practices contribute to greenhouse gas emissions—such as nitrous oxide from fertilizer application and methane from livestock production—and pollute our soil, air, and waterways, many farms have adopted and many more can transition to more sustainable practices and can, instead of contributing to climate change, actually mitigate it. Indeed, many existing programs can be refined and optimized to ensure that the U.S. agricultural and forestry sectors protect and enhance our shared environment for generations to come. Through USDA’s conservation programs and incentives, forest management and reforestation programs, investments in research and development on carbon sequestration, and stronger stewardship of public investments in farm support programs, Congress can help U.S. agriculture realize its potential to reach net zero, or even negative, carbon emissions.

About every five years, Congress revises and reauthorizes a legislative package that sets food and farming policy in the United States. The farm bill helps determine what we grow and how we grow it, funds programs for farmers as well as food access for low-income families, and establishes environmental protections for natural resources like soil and water. There have been 18 farm bills since the first one passed in 1933, and its last iteration in 2018 was a $428 billion investment. The bill has 12 categories, called titles, and they cover everything from agricultural conservation and rural utilities to nutrition and crop insurance. The nutrition title is the largest, receiving more than 75 percent of the bill’s total dollars to fund programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Some may not immediately see the environmental and health connection, but Allison Johnson, a senior attorney in NRDC’s People & Communities program who works on food and health, says, “The Farm Bill is one of the most critical pieces of legislation that shapes our food system and its environmental impacts, such as air and water pollution. So it's something that every environmentalist should be paying attention to and engaging their representatives on.” Senate and House agriculture committee hearings for the 2023 update are already underway, with officials gathering input from the public, including from environmental organizations. For instance, in recent months, NRDC submitted testimony in Michigan on job growth and economic opportunity, and, in Minnesota, on a wide range of issues, including regenerative and organic agriculture, water infrastructure, and Farm to School programs. Climate change, of course, is an issue that runs through them all. Agriculture is responsible for about 11 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—an amount higher than the total emissions from all but the 12 most polluting countries in the world. Some big sources of those emissions are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), with their huge manure lagoons, ruminant livestock like cattle and sheep that literally belch methane (and they do this a lot), and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which take large amounts of fossil fuels to produce and then release nitrous oxide once used. Peter Lehner, a former NRDC executive director and now director of Earthjustice’s sustainable food and farming program, says the stakes are too high to let industry call the shots any longer. “We have to get onto the playing field—and we have to get on the playing field with a 30-year perspective.” Indeed, the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August, recognizes the relationship between agriculture and climate change. Among other provisions, the act includes $20 billion for climate-friendly agriculture—the largest investment in agricultural conservation funding since the federal response to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s—and $6 billion in relief for farmers and ranchers burdened by debt or discrimination. The upcoming farm bill can build on the momentum set into motion by these investments. Here’s how. Climate-friendly farming “The connection between climate and agriculture is really beginning to crystalize, and there are many opportunities for our agricultural system to shift from being a climate problem to a climate solution,” says Matthew Kaplan, a senior attorney in NRDC’s Nature program. Some of the greatest natural climate solutions lie right under our feet: regenerative and organic farming. The country’s agricultural soils have the potential to store 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent every year—if we tend to them in the right ways. With the farm bill, Congress could incentivize regenerative practices, such as cover cropping, or planting specific crops like rye and peas with the intention of building soil health. One way to do that is through the COVER Act, which would offer farmers who plant cover crops a $5-per-acre savings on their crop insurance. The farm bill could also expand programs such as the Soil Health Demonstration Trial, a 2018 farm bill addition that tracks and compensates farmers’ efforts to improve their soil. Lastly, next year’s legislative package could establish programs to help farmers and ranchers incorporate agroforestry into their operations in order to help make crops—and surrounding lands and waterways—more resilient to climate impacts. To boot, a 2011 study found that growing trees around crops and pastureland, an Indigenous land management practice, could offset up to a third of United States’ carbon emissions each year. In addition, more support for organic farming could help reduce the use of fossil fuel–intensive fertilizers and pesticides that emit nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that also harms the ozone layer. NRDC began advocating for the farm bill to include support for organic agriculture more than three decades ago, after it exposed the risks that the residues of pesticides like Alar pose to children. Partly in response, the 1990 farm bill introduced the national standards for the production and labeling of organic produce that we know today. Now Congress has the chance to build on a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative that will expand organic agriculture by providing flexible support for farmers and ranchers during the challenging three-year transition to organic. Organic transition programs help put organic farming and ranching within reach for many who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it, and some existing successful programs that train farmers and make organic certification easier could be a helpful model for the next farm bill.

Research shows that SNAP is one of our most effective tools in reducing hunger and food insecurity. Much of SNAP’s success is due to its structure: it is designed so that everyone who is eligible can get benefits; it expands automatically to meet needs during tough times; and it focuses its benefits to the households with the least resources available to purchase groceries, assisting families with low incomes to obtain adequate nutrition, regardless of where they live. As of December 2022, SNAP was helping more than 42 million low-income people in the U.S. to afford a nutritionally adequate diet by providing them with benefits on a debit card that can be used only to purchase food at about 254,000 retailers across the country. On average, SNAP recipients receive about $6 per person per day in food benefits, now that the temporary additional benefits during the COVID-19 public health emergency have ended. SNAP’s reach shows the extensive need for nutrition assistance and SNAP’s critical role in addressing it. FIGURE 1 Food Insecurity by Race and Ethnicity Reveals Stark Disparities Despite SNAP’s success in reaching people with low incomes, large numbers of households across all backgrounds still struggle to afford food each month. Given this ongoing need, as I will discuss below, I urge you to protect SNAP from efforts to cut it and make it less responsive to people’s needs and to take opportunities to strengthen the program, particularly for racial and ethnic groups that continue to face far higher levels of food hardship than white households, often due to a long history of racism and discrimination that has resulted in less opportunity in education, housing, and employment. (See Figure 1.) SNAP reaches about 80 percent of eligible households. It delivers the largest benefits to those least able to afford an adequate diet. About 92 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with incomes at or below the poverty line, and 54 percent go to households at or below half of the poverty line (about $12,430 for a family of three in 2023). Families with the greatest need receive the largest benefits; these households, particularly households with children, also have higher rates of participation in the program. Nearly 90 percent of SNAP participants are in households that contain a child under age 18, an older adult 60 years or older, or an individual with a disability. SNAP is also an important support for workers who are paid low wages. Millions of people in the U.S. work in jobs with low wages, unpredictable schedules, and no benefits such as paid sick leave — all of which contribute to high turnover and spells of unemployment. SNAP provides monthly benefits that help fill gaps for workers with low and inconsistent pay and can help workers afford food during periods when they are looking for work. The majority of SNAP participants who can work do so, either while receiving SNAP or before and after. Among SNAP participants who are working-age, non-disabled adults, more than half work while receiving SNAP — and 74 percent work in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP. For families with children and at least one working-age, non-disabled adult the work rates are even higher: 75 percent of households with children include someone who works while receiving SNAP and nearly 90 percent of such households include someone who works in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP. This shows that joblessness is often temporary for SNAP participants. SNAP is also highly responsive to the economy. When more households are out of work or see their earnings fall, SNAP automatically expands to serve everyone who is eligible and applies. This mitigates hardship during a recession and gets money into the economy quickly, acting as stimulus for the economy overall. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, SNAP responded quickly to deteriorating economic conditions, pushed back against food insecurity and other forms of hardship, and supported families during periods of unemployment, earnings loss, and uncertainty. Moreover, Congress acted expeditiously to temporarily modify and expand SNAP ― changes that states implemented quickly and effectively ― to deliver additional food assistance to households in communities across the country. Those temporary pandemic measures have now ended, or will soon end. SNAP and other forms of economic support prevented food insecurity from surging during the pandemic. But annual measures of food insecurity did rise for households with children and for households headed by Black adults; people of color have faced higher levels of food insecurity for decades. SNAP is a powerful anti-poverty tool, keeping nearly 8 million people above the poverty line in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, including 3.6 million children. SNAP not only alleviates near-term hardship, but it is also an investment in the future, as participation is associated with improved long-term outcomes in health, education, and labor market outcomes. Participants are more likely to report excellent or very good health than low-income non-participants and studies have linked SNAP to improved educational attainment, higher rates of high school completion, and improved labor market outcomes in adulthood. Older SNAP participants are less likely than similar non-participants to forgo their full prescribed dosage of medicine due to cost. SNAP may also help low-income seniors live independently in their communities and avoid hospitalization. The program’s effectiveness has been boosted by the recent update to the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) to better reflect the modern cost of a healthy diet, as directed by the bipartisan 2018 farm bill. The TFP update, which took effect at the start of fiscal year 2022, raises the average benefit per person per day by about $1.35 in fiscal year 2023, which is boosting millions of families’ ability to add a greater variety of fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods to their diet. Going forward, the statutorily required reevaluation every five years will ensure that SNAP’s benefit amounts reflect the latest research evidence and stay up to date as these factors continue to evolve. While the SNAP program is strong, some elements of its program design make it less effective in combatting food hardship than it could be. For example, SNAP’s harsh three-month time limit for many unemployed adults not raising children cuts off benefits for participants who may be looking for work, who face barriers to work, or who should have been exempted but the state did not correctly screen them, creating hardship with no significant impact on employment among those affected. Policymakers could also improve SNAP’s effectiveness by expanding access to food assistance for groups such as low-income seniors, people in Puerto Rico and certain other U.S. Territories, college students, people who are immigrants, and people with prior drug felony convictions; improving performance metrics so they measure program accessibility; and ensuring that SNAP operations keep pace with emerging technology. The farm bill should seek to address some of these shortcomings in the program to ensure that more people are able to access the food assistance they need. Unfortunately, rather than focus on these areas for improvement, some Republican members are calling for cuts to SNAP as part of budget negotiations on the farm bill, and have put forward proposals that would undercut SNAP’s effectiveness. A bill from House Agriculture Committee member Dusty Johnson and more than 20 other House Republicans would dramatically expand SNAP’s three-month time limit, including by applying it to additional groups of people, such as parents of school-age children and older adults, and severely restricting or eliminating states’ flexibility to waive the time limit in areas where there are insufficient jobs. This would double down on a policy that has been studied and shown to be highly ineffective. Two peer-reviewed papers published in the last two months (whose findings are consistent with other SNAP time limit studies) showed that SNAP’s harsh time limit reduced participation in the program by as much as 53 percent among those subject to the time limit, but achieved no effects on employment. Evidence both from the existing SNAP time limit and work requirement experiments in Medicaid show that these policies often hurt people who have disabilities who the state should have exempted but didn’t, and can even take away SNAP from people who are working but can’t navigate the bureaucratic reporting requirements. The proposals in the Johnson legislation would put more than 10 million people, about 1 in 4 SNAP participants, at risk of losing some or all of their food assistance. This includes 6 million people who would be newly subject to the time limit and at risk of losing eligibility for SNAP, and about 4 million children who live in families that could have their SNAP benefits reduced, harming the entire household. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington has similarly called for stricter work requirements in SNAP, and Senator John Kennedy introduced an even harsher bill in the Senate. In addition, budget plans put forward by the Republican Study Committee and by Trump-era Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought propose to take food assistance away through harmful work requirements while, respectively, turning SNAP into a strict block grant (often used to promote large, unspecified cuts) and radically restructuring SNAP by capping program spending. Ironically, some have also put forward proposals to deny SNAP to working households whose income is modestly about the standard income limit but whose high expenses for things like housing, child care, or health care strain their food budgets. Some 37 states have recognized the benefit to allowing these households to receive modest SNAP benefits to supplement their low earnings and have used flexibility in the SNAP law to do so, but some want to take away this state flexibility and cut food assistance to working households even as they insist that more SNAP recipients should be working. SNAP is a highly effective program that alleviates hunger and poverty, has positive impacts on the long-term outcomes of those who receive its benefits, and supports people in low-paid jobs and those between jobs. This effectiveness is threatened, however, by proposals that would impose harsh new policies that take benefits away from people not meeting work-reporting requirements and other possible cuts or structural changes. Indeed, SNAP proposals should be evaluated on whether they are likely to reduce food insecurity overall and, in particular, among Black, Indigenous, and Latino households, who face unconscionably high levels of food hardship. I discuss these issues in more depth in the remainder of my testimony.

The recent far-right rebellion that brought the House floor to a halt is a bad omen for another rapidly approaching legislative fight: the 2023 farm bill. Major battle lines are forming within the House Republican caucus over the $1 trillion farm bill reauthorization expected to hit the full House this fall — just as Washington is set to descend into another all-consuming battle to fund the government. GOP hardliners are still fuming over the deal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden to raise the debt limit earlier this month, especially a provision that could expand the number of people on federal food aid. And they are keen to take another swing at limiting that anti-hunger program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, up for reauthorization in the farm bill — which promises to be politically polarizing. Republican lawmakers from agriculture-heavy districts, however, want to move as quickly as possible to pass the legislative package — which contains billions of dollars for agriculture and rural development programs their constituents rely on. And they worry their far-right colleagues will snarl up those plans, pushing farm bill passage into the new year. That’s presenting McCarthy with one of his biggest legislative tests yet: Fending off yet another revolt from the right flank of his caucus while securing the bipartisan support that will be necessary to approve the must-pass legislation. At the rate it’s going, Congress may have to resort to extending the existing farm bill authorizations as programs begin to expire this fall — a practical and political headache for the agriculture sector and ag-state Republicans as they gear up for the 2024 election. It’s not just moderate Republicans raising alarms about the potential fall-out if the GOP-led House fails to pass a farm bill this year. “I don’t have a lot of confidence of anything passing the House anymore under the current environment,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.). DesJarlais, one of the few Republicans who is a member of both the Freedom Caucus and the Agriculture Committee, said he plans to reach out to all the fellow hard-right members he can in order to pass a farm bill with minimal delays. But he noted “there’s certain members … that I don’t think anybody can change their opinions.” The notoriously complex farm bill reauthorization process, by design, requires similar bipartisan compromises to those that enraged conservative Republicans during the debt limit negotiations. GOP aides are already assuming that a swathe of far-right Republicans will not vote for the farm bill, and they’ll need at least four to five dozen Democratic votes to pass it in the narrowly-divided House. Far-right Republicans are arguing that Kevin McCarthy and fellow GOP leaders “watered down” new SNAP work requirements in their deal to raise the debt limit. But after taking a beating over that deal with the White House, and straining to defuse the Freedom Caucus’ rebellion on the House floor last week, McCarthy has signaled it will likely be politically necessary to offer up some concessions to the hard right in the farm bill. In addition to further cuts to SNAP, GOP hardliners are targeting some of the farm safety net programs that are a third rail for the agriculture sector. A House Republican, who spoke of the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said any concessions from McCarthy to House GOP hardliners on the farm bill would be “a really dangerous pin to pull out of the grenade,” given the swift and bitter backlash it would stoke from the rest of the caucus. The farm bill came up only in passing during McCarthy’s meeting with the leaders of the so-called “five families” GOP caucus factions earlier this week, as one of the many legislative items Republicans need to get done this fall, according to two House Republicans who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. House Agriculture Committee staff have started compiling a 2023 draft of the farm bill as the panel races to complete a series of farm bill hearings. Negotiations on the text are expected to heat up later this month, with aides and lawmakers pushing for a committee markup by early September. The House-passed legislation will have to be reconciled with the version approved by the Senate. According to Senate Agriculture Chair and No. 3 Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Congress is “done” discussing SNAP work requirements in the wake of the debt limit talks. Many lawmakers are beginning to worry that given the current trajectory, the reauthorization process could drag into 2024, which would put additional pressure on a U.S. agriculture sector already reeling from high inflation and, in turn, become a political headache for lawmakers in agriculture-heavy districts and states ahead of the 2024 election. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently took to the floor to warn(ed) that “time is running out” to pass a farm bill this year. McCarthy has experienced a similar farm bill scenario in the past. He was the No. 2 Republican in the House in 2018 when Freedom Caucus members helped to sink a partisan House GOP farm bill on the floor. It took another seven months for Congress to get the final bill to then-President Donald Trump’s desk, giving Democrats ammunition to go after rural-district Republicans in the meantime. The Republican-majority Senate eventually stripped the House GOP’s steep SNAP restrictions from the final legislation, despite months of toil by McCarthy and then-Speaker Paul Ryan. This time around, congressional leaders are facing even more of a time crunch and far-right Republicans are taking an even harder line, arguing McCarthy and fellow GOP leaders “watered down” new SNAP work requirements in their deal to raise the debt limit. Although he hails from an agriculture-heavy district in California’s Central Valley, McCarthy is still not heavily involved, personally, in the farm bill policy talks. In private, however, the speaker has told fellow Republicans that in order to appease hardliners, the party will need to at least push for stricter work requirements and other restrictions on federal food assistance for low-income Americans beyond the debt deal provisions, according to three other GOP lawmakers who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters. “I think what the Speaker is saying is that let’s not just let that be the end of the conversation. Let’s have a good conversation, a bipartisan conversation about how we can have the most integrity and serve the most people with the dollars that we have,” said Rep. Brad Finstad (R-Minn.), chair of the House Agriculture subcommittee that oversees the country’s leading anti-hunger program. Many moderate House Republicans, however, are done having that conversation for now — especially those who delivered their party the House majority in 2020 by flipping districts Biden won over Trump. Democrats are already attacking many of those vulnerable Republicans for their support of the debt deal and the new SNAP restrictions in it. Rep. McGovern mocks House GOP rebellion: 'Boy, what an achievement' “We’ve negotiated a new level of requirements on SNAP and I think it’s time to move forward from there,” said Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.), who represents an agriculture-heavy California region that Biden carried by double digits in 2020. Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, another Republican in a Biden district, warned that pushing for SNAP restrictions beyond what Biden and McCarthy agreed to in the debt limit law would threaten the viability of the entire farm bill. “You can’t just have an agreement and then say we’re gonna change it,” Bacon said. “In the end, if we get a bipartisan bill, you’ll get enough Democrats on board where [opposition from some far-right House Republicans] won’t be an issue.” “I think that’s the goal,” Bacon added. We don’t want this to be a partisan bill.” Some of the more centrist House Democrats who McCarthy will need to vote for the farm bill have also publicly warned him against attempting to include further restrictions on SNAP in the farm bill. “SNAP is certainly one of the best tools we have for reducing poverty,” said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez (D-Wash.) during a recent hearing, who noted rural communities like hers are more likely to be enrolled in the program than their urban counterparts. Like Bacon, Rep. Sanford Bishop, a moderate Democrat who represents a rural stretch of Georgia, warned that additional GOP efforts to pare back nutrition spending in the farm bill threatens the future of the entire legislation — which includes key farm safety net programs moderate Democrats and Republicans need in their districts. “It’s inextricably tied together,” said Bishop.

IT BEGINS: On Wednesday, the full House Agriculture committee is holding its first hearing on nutrition programs — following the contentious fight over SNAP in the debt talks. As we’ve reported, Democrats have complained that the committee has yet to hold any hearings on the matter — while they argue some Republicans spread false claims about SNAP and program recipients during the debt talks. The hearing will set up a major fight between Republicans and Democrats in the House during the upcoming farm bill reauthorization later this summer. UPCOMING FIGHT: But the Senate and House are on an even bigger collision course over the topic of SNAP. Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) last week told MA that, from her perspective, Congress is “done” with any discussion around SNAP changes. “What’s clear to me is once this is done we are not revisiting it in the farm bill. This is it,” Stabenow said in an interview. But Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in his speech last Wednesday night celebrating the House’s passage of the debt bill, appeared to gear his caucus up for a bruising farm bill battle over SNAP. “Let’s get the rest of the work requirements,” McCarthy said. Remember: Some House Republican hardliners are even more eager to push stricter SNAP work requirements in the farm bill after they felt the debt agreement between Biden and McCarthy “watered down” what was in their original bill. A wide swath of House Republicans were also not pleased that CBO projected all the SNAP work requirement changes in the debt bill will actually increase spending and enrollment for the program — which Republicans have been trying to cut. McCarthy had originally pitched the new work requirements as a way to keep the U.S. from borrowing more money from China to pay able-bodied people not to work, but the CBO projection directly undermines that claim. Senior Republicans dispute that projection. But regardless, three House GOP hardliners told MA the CBO analysis just proved how “embarrassing” the Republican-led negotiations were.

Rebuilding our regional food infrastructure will not happen overnight; it requires public investment and political will. Farm Bill funding should invest in programs that connect local farms to the grocery stores and restaurants where consumers spend their food dollars.69 This includes increasing funding for regional food hubs that help smaller farms distribute and sell their products in new markets that would otherwise be difficult to enter.70

The budget-driven political playbook may be an effective political strategy that is relatively easy to execute; it has been honed since 1981 (see e.g., Stockman 1986; Greider, December 1981). The policy accomplishments are much more difficult to discern, but this strategy has certainly accomplished little in terms of reducing federal spending, deficits or debt. The most recent House debt limit bill is a rather striking proposal, largely devoid of major substantive policy changes and would modestly reduce annual deficits or the national debt. The changes to SNAP stand as an exemplar, recycling work requirements at a time of historic unemployment achieves little actual savings while likely harming hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans. The point, however, is not policy substance or actual spending reductions; it is negotiating leverage and politics. The effectiveness of this latest iteration of the strategy remains very much in doubt, more so the consequences and impacts of either success or failure. The same can be said for the prospects of reauthorizing a farm bill in 2023. An optimist might see a proposal and an opening negotiating position less extreme than in the past, or that might have been expected; a pessimist might see a relatively transparent attempt at positioning for shifting the blame of pending catastrophe. The deadline for taking action is rapidly approaching.

The Senate and House Agriculture committees are weeks or even months away from drafting the 2023 farm bill, a remarkably late start for what is always a detailed and time-consuming process. The new farm bill would be the most expensive ever and is likely to be completed after the Sept. 30 expiration of the current farm law, if recent history is a guide. Neither of the committees has set a timeline for assembling the broad-spectrum legislation. SNAP could be a sticking point, notwithstanding arguments that the debt ceiling bill, enacted over the weekend, was the last word on work requirements. "Budget issues are part of the story," said Pat Westhoff, director of the FAPRI think tank, pointing to the lengthy negotiations over the debt ceiling. In addition, the CBO updated its in mid-May, marginally increasing the farm bill baseline to roughly $1.5 trillion. "The debt limit debate and the delayed CBO scoring created a lot of uncertainty that may have discouraged parties from putting forward concrete proposals," said Westhoff. "At least some of that uncertainty has been resolved but I'm not sure there is consensus even now about what the budget target for the bill as a whole should be, let alone the targets for particular titles of the bill." The 2014 and 2018 farm bills were completed behind schedule, with food stamps as the major hurdle each time. The 2018 midterm elections effectively ended the standoff over Republican-proposed SNAP cuts, with Democrats gaining control of the House. President Trump signed the bill into law on Dec. 20, 2018. three months after the nominal expiration date of the 2014 farm law. The 2008 farm bill was supposed to be replaced in fall 2012 but Congress fought over food stamps until early 2014.

Food stamp legislation all but certainly had enough support to pass on a floor vote if the Ag Committee would have allowed it; President Johnson was even able to get a pilot “surplus commodities” program instituted administratively in 1962. Finally, to save the farm bill, the Southerners struck an agreement to build on the surplus commodities demonstration and include food stamps in the package. This arrangement was permanently enshrined in the 1977 farm bill.

“That historical contingency forever changed the politics of the farm and thus the direction of our country’s ag policy,” said Jonathan Coppess, the author of The Fault Lines of Farm Policy and the former administrator of the Farm Service Agency at the Department of Agriculture under President Barack Obama.

Members of a House Democratic task force on the farm bill say they should use their power to protect their interests during negotiations on the legislation or else hold out until there is a change in the makeup of Congress. During a roundtable discussion hosted by the task force Thursday in the Capitol, the group's chairman, Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, was joined by Reps. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., to hear stakeholders’ insight on how to formulate the caucus’ farm bill priorities.  Thompson said the goal is to finish the task force’s recommendations by the end of the month. Hayes and McGovern are members of the House Ag Committee. Thompson is not. McGovern also is the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee. Thompson encouraged commodity and other groups to stay united, noting they “can’t be too territorial if we’re going to get a compromise farm bill.” McGovern said cutting nutrition programs was a non-starter for Democrat support. If that’s the path Republicans plan to take, “let’s not do a farm bill. Let’s buy some time until we get a Congress that will actually do the right thing. We have some power here,” McGovern said. The lawmakers said the farm bill reauthorization offers a chance to address issues that are prioritized by Democrats and to capitalize on the need to pass a bill. Hayes said in attempting to achieve bipartisanship, Democrats should not give up their desire to tackle systemic inequities. “I think so many times that we concede ... ‘this is the best we can get,’ and we live to fight another day. But there’s no reason to even do that. We should be able to come to the table on these issues and do things that are advantageous for everyone,” she said. “I hope that we produce a farm bill that is forward thinking, that builds capacity and infuses the pipeline and really thinks about the next steps so that we are not just putting Band-aids on generational problems that we have,” Hayes added. One of the issues is funding for climate-smart agriculture, which Hayes said “should not be a fight.” She said she’s hearing many farmers in her district are already doing these practices but need government assistance to help with startup costs. Leaders from the Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group called on the Democrats to protect the new conservation funding provided in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Thompson called a “godsend” to address the shortfalls in funds for farmers who wanted to adopt climate-smart actions on their farm. Thompson said Democrats will need McGovern’s help to protect those funds from an attempt by Republicans to reallocate those dollars elsewhere in the farm bill. “If we want that money to continue, we will have to somehow get it included,” Thompson said into the farm bill baseline, but it should remain allocated for conservation. “If those various programs have made a difference, the goal is to get that difference infused in the farm bill so we can go forward.” Cathy Burns, president and CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association, reminded the task force that the White House held its "historic" conference on hunger, nutrition and health last fall with the goal of ending hunger and reducing diet related disease by 2030. “Simply put, we cannot achieve these targets without a farm bill this cycle that deliberately put policies in place that aligns with those very goals,” Burns said. “Domestically, specialty crops accounted for 44% of the farm gate value. Despite this, and the fact that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that 50% of our plate is fruits and vegetables, only about 3.5% of the farm bill expenditures target fruits and vegetables.” Aaron Shier, director of government relations at the National Farmers Union, caught Hayes’ attention with what she called a “strikingly low statistic.” He noted that farmers and ranchers on average only receive 14 cents of every dollar that consumers spend on food. Shier said the lower percentage of the food dollar going to farmers is why NFU is advocating for a competition title in the farm bill. “We think we need to focus on fair and competitive markets and build additional market opportunities for farmers,” Shier said. Andrew Walmsley, a senior director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the farm bill presents an “important opportunity for us to rise above partisanship." He urged Democrats to work together to pass legislation that protects food security and ensures future success for farmers.

Lawmakers and labor unions are working to amend a longtime bill that would establish a single-payer health care system in New York as budget talks get under way.  About 1 million New York adults, or about 1 in 6, lack health insurance, according to the New York City Health Department. Lawmakers have debated the best way to ensure every New Yorker has access to health coverage for decades, including replacing existing coverage through private insurance companies and implementing socialized health care in the state. Legislation nicknamed the New York Health Act would create a universal health care system and cover all primary, preventive and specialized medical care for all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status. The system would be funded through an income-based graduated tax based on a person's ability to pay. "If we allow insurance companies to remain at the center of the health care endeavor, then we're never going to be able to get out of it," said sponsor Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who chairs the Senate Health Committee. The proposed universal health plan for the state would differ from the federal Affordable Care Act in eliminating insurance companies as the core of the system. "...Ultimately, what Obamacare did was to provide some standards for a marketplace of insurance plans," said Rivera, a Bronx Democrat. "We want to move away from that completely. The notion of premiums, the notion of out-of-pocket costs, the notion of networks, these are all the things that insurance companies rely on and want to continue to push on us."  Lawmakers will not provide details on potential changes to the legislation as they work to amend the measure, which has continued to gain support from Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly signing on as co-sponsors over the last few years. Assembly Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin is new to sponsor the bill, taking the reins from original sponsor Assemblyman Richard Gottfried who retired last year. Many of the state's public employment unions have long opposed a universal health system in New York, wanting to ensure their workers will retain the same level and quality of coverage they secured in contract negotiations.  "They have not been enamored with the bill," said Paulin, a Democrat from Scarsdale. "I know that Dick had proposed some language to address their concerns. I'm waiting to see what those reactions to that language are before I go forward." Republicans blast the idea of New York creating and implementing a universal health system in the state. Sen. Patrick Gallivan, a Republican from Elma, stresses the No. 1 obstacle is the exorbitant, unknown cost of the change — estimated to be billions of dollars — and impact on higher tax rates for New Yorkers and businesses.  "The bill leaves a lot to speculation and simply says, 'we're going to go and do this and then we'll figure it out after we pass the law,'" Gallivan said Thursday. "That's not acceptable." Gallivan also expressed the concern a single-payer health system would impact the quality of health care available to New Yorkers. Bill Hammond, senior fellow for Health Policy with right-leaning think tank the Empire Center, says the Health Act would completely dismantle the state's current health system when most of the 1 million uninsured people could get coverage through expanding existing programs or better advertising. Opponents are also skeptical the state could handle overhauling its health system, citing examples of problematic government programs or corrupt entities. "This is not a state that's known for efficient management of programs," Hammond said. "And this would be the mother of all programs to manage." Meanwhile, conversations between lawmakers and labor unions remain ongoing.  The new version of the Health Act is expected to be reintroduced in the coming weeks as the Senate and Assembly prepare to release their one-house budget proposals next month. But the specific timeline and priority for this legislative session remains unclear. "Whether it's this year, I don't know, but I am planning on trying to push forward," Paulin said. Several labor unions that have been publicly opposed to a single-payer health care system didn't respond to requests for comment or declined to be interviewed Friday. Those in support of the Health Act argue a single-payer system would cost less by cutting out private insurance companies, out-of-pocket costs and county Medicaid expenses. "Single-payer is a way to actually have a system that we pay less money for and that produces better results," Rivera said, adding, "...The idea that health care is a human right is something that everyone can agree on. Not everyone can agree the same that there's one way to get there." Rivera has had discussions with Hochul's staffers about a single-payer health system in the state and said some people in her administration are on board with universal medical coverage for New Yorkers. Representatives with Hochul's office did not respond to questions Friday about the governor's stance on the need for socialized health care in New York. It was not something she included in her executive budget proposal released last week or her State of the State address on Jan. 10.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Gro Harlem Brundtland explains how Universal Health Coverage is a matter of political commitment since it consists of a political process ensuring the creation of an equitable health financing system. "Universal health coverage is not just desirable, but eminently achievable"- Gro Harlem Brundtland The new Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhamon, has made his priority clear: to work tirelessly to fulfil the promise of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This was his message throughout his successful election campaign, which he reiterated during May’s World Health Assembly. As one of his predecessors at WHO, I applaud his vision and ambition. There is a growing political consensus that UHC is not just desirable, but eminently achievable. At The Elders, where I am the deputy chair, we see UHC as the best strategy to achieve the overall health sustainable development goal. Dr Tedros also made another very significant statement during his speech, that: “Universal Health Coverage is a matter of political commitment and we have to ensure political commitment if we are going to achieve it.” "Universal Health Coverage is a matter of political commitment." This is an extremely important message for the global health community, which often tends to overlook the politics of health reforms in preferring to focus on technical solutions. But across the world we know that in every country, extending health coverage is an inherently political process, especially when it comes to creating an equitable health financing system. This is because UHC can only be achieved by the state compelling healthy and wealthy members of society to subsidise services for the sick and the poor. In effect, UHC can only be reached through public financing where the state has a big role in raising revenues fairly, according to people’s ability to pay and allocating pooled resources according to health needs. "UHC can only be reached through public financing where the state compels healthy and wealthy members of society to subsidise services for the sick and poor." Not surprisingly, this transition to a publicly financed health system is often challenged by interest groups that tend to benefit from a fragmented privately financed system—for example private insurance companies, private hospitals, and those who are ideologically opposed to a welfare state. This opposition can be extremely well organised and powerful as we are seeing in the United States and South Africa. Overcoming this opposition and launching successful UHC reforms therefore requires a large investment of public financing and political capital by the government. In fact, given the huge political costs and benefits involved, it is usually the case that UHC reforms must be led by the head of state, as ministries of health lack the power to raise sufficient funding and tackle UHC opponents effectively.

The pertinence of the preceding analysis of basic income attitudes to basic income’s practical political feasibility does have limits. Asking respondents for their position on abstract welfare preferences is limiting because we do not know whether they would be willing to expend real political capital, the strength of their preferences vis-à-vis alternatives, and/or if they are fully aware of the implications and trade-offs their choice involves. It is very likely that people might favor basic income in abstract terms, but that support would fall substantially in the context of budgetary constraints. Although the ESS question does state that the policy would be financed through a combination of tax rises and benefit cuts, the full implications of the trade-off are not apparent. More generally, then, we have concerns that questions regarding such a specific (and rather hypothetical) welfare policy reform as basic income would be subject to high levels of “non-attitudes” (Converse 1974), particularly without a response option for “neither support or oppose.”

The “hypothetical” nature of the basic income question—and the related issue that respondents do not have a concrete example of the policy in mind—ties in with an issue that is quite specific to basic income. In light of a myriad alternative “modes of implementation” regarding payment levels, funding options, and interactions with the wider system of welfare benefits, attitudes to basic income are likely to depend on which specific policy design features are envisaged by the respondent. As we mentioned previously, Martinelli (2020) shows that basic income policy design is subject to a three-way trade-off between fiscal, distributional, and bureaucratic goals. Alternative forms of basic income give rise to a specific pattern of winners and losers and are likely to appeal to (or dissuade) different coalitions of political actors. Thus, it is likely that apparently broad-based support will not survive the specification of a concrete direction for reform.

The $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief bill that President Biden signed into law Thursday includes an initiative that looks a lot like guaranteed income for families. Starting in July, parents of children ages 17 and younger will get monthly cash grants of up to $300 per child, to spend however they please.

Could this be the start of a broader effort to combat poverty with bigger monthly checks? Some signs point to yes. Although no Republicans voted for the COVID bill, there has been bipartisan support in Congress for increasing the child tax credit and for turning it into a monthly payment, rather than a once-a-year reduction in one’s income taxes.

House Republicans are pushing back on the idea of providing a minimum guaranteed income to Americans amid the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed an openness to the concept on Monday during an interview with MSNBC while discussing the financial aid recently approved by Congress to help bolster the economy.

Still, the survey found that 52 percent of Americans do not support a basic income.

The chances of a universal basic income coming to pass are highly unlikely, said Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. By his estimates, a program providing everyone with $10,000 annually could cost more $3 trillion a year.

A second set of disadvantages concerns the political consequences. Putting a new policy into place can take a lot of political capital, which is the money and support that politicians and policymakers have at their disposal. The political disadvantage argument argues that implementing a UBI could use up political capital that would be better spent on other policy priorities This opposition is likely to emerge from many corners. First, Fiscal conservatives. Fiscal conservatives are concerned about the potential cost of implementing a UBI. They argue that providing a regular income to all individuals would be too expensive and could lead to a significant increase in government spending, deficits, and debt. Second, Corporations and the wealthy. Some corporations and wealthy individuals oppose UBI because it could lead to higher taxes or reduce the power and influence of the wealthy elite. They argue that UBI is a form of redistribution that would discourage hard work and entrepreneurship. Third, ideological opponents. People who don’t believe in social welfare or want the government to stay out of the economy could be against UBI for ideological reasons. They argue that UBI is a form of socialism that would lead to a nanny state and undermine individual responsibility and initiative. Fourth, labor unions. Some labor unions are opposed to UBI because they fear it could lead to a reduction in wages and benefits for workers. They argue that UBI could give employers greater bargaining power and could lead to a reduction in the social safety net for workers. Fifth, social conservatives. Social conservatives may oppose UBI because they believe that it would undermine traditional family structures and work ethics. They say that giving everyone a basic income would make people lazy and dependent, and it could lead to a loss of social values. A big program like this could cost the Democrats some political capital, but it could also have effects on the election that could make or break their chances of keeping the presidency.

Because it would be universal, UBI would allow government to eliminate a great deal of the wasteful bureaucracy and the time-consuming and often humiliating means-testing practices that accompany most current welfare programs. This is something of a double-edged sword. Some critics raise the specter of UBI being used as an opportunity for right-wing or rightward-leaning legislators to cut existing social-welfare programs.36 Here again, though, the same criticism could be leveled against any proposed social-welfare reform. Yes, reactionary elites will always have the inclination to intentionally underfund or otherwise undermine a beneficial reform, but that is not a legitimate objection to advocating for the reform in the first place. This criticism fails to recognize that the benefits of any such reform measure always depend(s) upon political will. For example, just because public funding of higher education in the United States has been inadequate for decades, this does not make higher education a bad idea. The public housing system in the United States is horrible, but that does not make public housing a bad idea. The success of any reform always depends, in the final analysis, on sufficient mobilization to not only win the gain but also maintain it over time. Therefore, the only legitimate aspect of this criticism of reforms like UBI is that the political mobilization needed to obtain it and sustain it over time will divert time and energy from other projects that may more directly advance us toward a solidarity economy. In short, it comes down to a judgment call on whether work on this reform merits the expenditure of time, effort, and political capital needed to secure it versus other projects that would advance the ball.