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EDITORIAL: Cutting Food Aid Mistakes Fat for Hunger

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Nov. 5--To borrow the words of a country song, House and Senate budget gurus are looking for cuts in all the wrong places.

To help pay for the post-Katrina mop-up and reduce the burgeoning deficit, both houses of Congress have decided -- at long last -- that the time has come to slash government spending.

That, in itself, is good. Too much indulgence has transformed a budget surplus into a black hole. It's where officials have decided to remove budgetary fat that's jaw-dropping: from the stomachs of hungry Americans.

The House Agriculture Committee, chaired by Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, has decided to drop 300,000 food stamp recipients and 40,000 children who get free school lunches.

In a case of supremely bad timing for Goodlatte and crew, the Department of Agriculture released a study on hunger last Friday. The results? Some 529,000 more Americans went hungry in 2004 than in 2003.

Despite approving more than 6,000 pork-barrel projects in the recently passed highway bill -- earmarks that cost taxpayers $24 billion, almost half the savings lawmakers are now seeking -- the House is taking aim at the working poor.

It will soon vote on a budget package aimed at saving $50 billion over five years. Items include allowing states to charge co-pays and premiums to poor families on Medicaid; yanking federal support from state child support enforcement efforts; and changing welfare laws and foster-care programs.

Thank goodness the Senate, which voted this week to pare some $35 billion from the deficit, has shied away from targeting the least among us.

Yes, its budget-cutting bill took on Medicare and Medicaid. But instead of aiming at beneficiaries, it gleaned savings from insurance subsidies, pharmacies and drug companies. And its food stamp money remains intact.

On the balance sheets at least, it all may be for naught. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the $50 billion in savings won't make a dent in the deficit when Congress passes tax-cut extensions that will cost $70 billion over the same five years.

And pork-addled senators just can't resist stuffing new spending -- some $35 billion worth -- into their deficit-reduction plan. That includes $1 billion to dairy farmers for milk income payments, and an astonishing $3 billion for TV analog-to-digital converter boxes.

It's encouraging that, after years of budgetary gluttony, Congress finally has developed a taste for dieting. But it should spread the pain to everyone at the table instead of finding fat only on the plates of the less-fortunate.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

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Source: The Virginian-Pilot

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