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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Thursday, April 17, 2025
House Republican leaders on Wednesday narrowly won approval for their bill to raise the debt ceiling while also slashing federal spending and expanding SNAP work requirements.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson is leaving the door open to trying to tighten SNAP eligibility rules in the farm bill if Republicans fail to get a debt-limit deal with President Joe Biden to expand the program’s work requirements.
House Republicans will try to pass a plan to raise the debt ceiling that would cut domestic spending, expand SNAP work requirements and gut the biofuel and clean energy tax incentives that are the centerpiece of President Joe Biden climate policy.
House Republicans proposed a plan Wednesday for raising the federal debt ceiling that would also expand work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to able-bodied adults as old as 55.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said Wednesday the debate over SNAP work requirements should take place during the farm bill debate, not as an issue for negotiations over the government’s debt ceiling.
House Republicans are targeting SNAP work requirements as they prepare legislation to raise the debt ceiling, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a speech Monday at the New York Stock Exchange.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sparred with House Republicans over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in what could be an opening skirmish in a battle over potential program cuts as Congress considers a new farm bill.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on President Joe Biden agree to tighten welfare program work requirements, raising the stakes on an issue that could trip up a new farm bill.
Republicans and Democrats are beginning to chart the path of how they want to address food assistance work requirements in the 2023 farm bill discussion at the same time requirements return to pre-pandemic standards in May with the end of the public health emergency.
An additional 1.5 million able-bodied, non-senior Americans would no longer qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program exemptions for work requirements under a bill planned to be introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
