Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Breitbart News exclusively on Thursday that work requirements for food stamps needs to be in the Farm bill, while Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said he hopes President Donald Trump says he will refuse to sign a Farm bill without work requirements.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said on Wednesday that the final Farm bill will likely not have work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps.
The House passed its version of the Farm bill in June containing work requirements, and the Senate passed its Farm bill that does not contain the SNAP mandates. Now the House and the Senate have to reconcile the differences in a conference committee.
Both Reps. Jordan and Davidson told Breitbart News on Thursday that work requirements need to be in the bill. Davidson urged President Donald Trump to say that the will not sign a Farm bill without the work requirements.
“If you’re an able-bodied adult, you should have to work to receive taxpayer money,” Jordan said in a statement to Breitbart News. “It will help get people out of welfare, off of the cycle of dependency, and to a better position in life. Welfare reform needs to stay in the final Farm Bill.”
“I hope the president makes it clear that he’s not going to sign a [Farm] bill that does not include work requirements,” Davidson told Breitbart News in an interview on Thursday.
Davidson continued, “I support a safety net for people in need, but I think people expect that able-bodied, working age, not in a depressed area Americans need to find work, or do something to help you find work, or volunteer, or go to school, in exchange for your neighbor’s money.”
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-NC), another House Freedom Caucus member, noted in June that the work requirement sets a “low bar” of 20 hours of work, education, or community service to obtain food stamps.
Robert Doar, a poverty scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), wrote an op-ed in June that work requirements for food stamps will help “fight poverty at its roots.”
A survey from the Foundation for Government Accountability revealed that more than 82 percent of Americans, including 94 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats, support work requirements for food stamp recipients.
House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway (R-TX) told Breitbart News in an interview in April that the work requirement in the farm bill “is an opportunity to help people who want to help themselves. Most Americans are very supportive of that idea.”
Congressman Davidson said conservatives might be able to enact more welfare reform by splitting up the Farm bill. The Ohio congressman alluded to how the country might benefit from splitting up the omnibus into separate appropriations bills, which would make it easier to fight for fiscally conservative measures without tanking the entire bill.
“We would be better off if we had clean votes on clean bills,” Davidson said. “Maybe to get reforms we have to decouple” the agriculture programs from SNAP.
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