By The CR Gazette Editorial Board
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It’s been nearly six months since Gov. Terry Branstad used a line-item veto to erase a $500,000 emergency state appropriation for Iowa’s food banks. We think the decision was a mistake that has been magnified by recent trends.
—- His surprising action drew considerable criticism from those who argued that food banks needed a modest serving of state help at a critical moment. The governor insisted that private donors, not the state, should be the ones who respond to the need for dollars.
“No,” said Barb Prather, board chairman for the Iowa Food Bank Association, when asked last week if Branstad’s high-profile action led to a wave of private donations. “Some of us saw donations, but nothing that would significantly increase our fundraising.”
DEMAND RISING
What food banks have seen since that veto is a continuing increase in the number of Iowans seeking help to feed their families. They’ve seen an election campaign where the prospect of massive cuts to the federal food stamps program loomed large, potentially sending many more Iowans to food pantries. They’ve seen rising food prices in the wake of a severe drought, with a further bump in prices from Superstorm Sandy.
More school children have signed up for programs that send them home each weekend with backpacks filled with food. And although community support for food banks has remained strong, donations are not growing to meet new demands.
“We’re definitely seeing that our pantries are having to purchase a lot more food. We’re having to purchase a lot more food,” said Amanda Pieper, director of the Hawkeye Community Action Program’s food reservoir. She said the reservoir’s 103 pantries in seven counties are seeing a 20 to 30 percent increase in clients served this year. Many, she said, are people who make too much to qualify for food stamps but still too little to make ends meet.
The dollars vetoed by Branstad would have been used to purchase food. And, according to Pieper, every dollar the reservoir receives can be leveraged to purchase $12 worth of food because they can buy commodities in bulk through private and government sources.
‘INSECURITY’ UP
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 12 percent of Iowa households are food insecure, meaning that those families, at times during the year, lack access to enough food, or must choose between covering various expenses, such as medical care, and buying adequate food. The USDA says 4.7 percent of Iowa households have very low food security.
Feeding America, a national coalition of food banks, estimates — using 2010 census data — that 25,000 Linn County households and nearly 17,000 Johnson County households are food insecure. Between the two counties, those households fall more than $7 million short each year of providing adequate food, what the group calls the “meal gap.”
Iowa’s state gap is $70 million. And Feeding America estimates that nearly one in five children statewide are food insecure.
Insecurity could expand, depending on what Congress does with SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.
As of October, 197,323 Iowa households received food assistance, up 6.8 percent from a year ago. Federal rules cut off eligibility for those earning more than 130 percent of poverty-level wages, or $29,064 for a family of four, with no more than $2,000 in assets. The low asset limit hasn’t changed since the 1980s.
Iowa took advantage of a provision of welfare reform that allows the state to raise the income threshold to 160 percent, or $35,772 for a family of four, by permitting automatic, or “categorical eligibility,” to Iowans already enrolled in other poverty programs and waiving the asset test. Iowa’s eligibility structure reduces benefits as a household’s income approaches 160 percent, instead of dropping benefits completely the moment income hits 130 percent, known as “the cliff.”
FARM BILL STUCK
SNAP funding is a massive chunk of the Farm Bill, which remained stuck in Congress through the election. And one big reason it’s stuck is a dispute over how much to cut from SNAP.
Democrats who control the Senate would slice a little more than $4 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years. Republicans who control the House would cut $16 billion, including $10 billion in savings achieved by eliminating categorical eligibility. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House version would end SNAP benefits for 33,000 Iowans, including 15,000 children.
One GOP effort to reach a compromise by raising the income limit to 140 percent and the asset limit to $5,0000 while eliminating categorical eligibility stalled amid opposition from Republican lawmakers who want deeper cuts.
So the fate of SNAP funding is now in the hands of key lawmakers and President Obama as they seek to hammer out before year’s end a budget deal before the “fiscal cliff,” a series of budget cuts and tax increases, arrives.
The good news in the Farm Bill is that both Senate and House versions of the bill increase funding for programs that provide commodities to food banks. But SNAP cuts could offset those gains by sending more people to food banks for help.
“With SNAP benefits, it will be interesting to see how that pans out, what the cuts are and how that trickles down and affects us here at the local level,” said Pieper, who leads HACAP’s Food Reservoir. “It will affect the population that we serve.”
BIG BUDGET SURPLUS
In our view, the case for state funding has actually grown stronger over the six months since Branstad’s veto. And the governor’s argument that our state should have no role in assisting these efficient, effective and critical organizations rings even more hollow.
Food banks and pantries are still scrambling to deal with the consequences of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. The very real prospect of federal cuts in food assistance promises to make food banks’ job even more challenging. Private generosity will play a critical role, but can only do so much to dent the huge financial gap between needs and demands.
Meanwhile, our state government is holding a massive, perhaps-record budget surplus. Food is not a frill or some needless budgetary add-on. It’s a basic necessity that thousands of Iowans are struggling to meet, including thousands of children.
In January, the Legislature should reprise its bipartisan effort to help food banks and the Iowans they serve, and this time, the governor should cap his veto pen and stand behind them.
You voted again for Mr. Socialism – eat your grits and be quiet !