Pallone Visits Elijah's Promise to Decry SNAP Cuts

People who rely on government assistance to eat are facing a looming crisis, anti-hunger advocates say.

On Friday morning, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Burlington/Camden) visited Elijah's Promise today to talk about cuts to the federal Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program.

SNAP is a federally funded program that provides food stamps to people living in poverty or with limited income. SNAP recipients receive about $1.50 per meal, or about $4 a day, Pallone said. 

On Thursday, the House passed a version of the federal Farm Bill—which includes assistance for U.S. farmers, Meals on Wheels and school lunch programs—without its SNAP component, according to a report in USA Today.

The omittance of SNAP in that bill would affect 48 million Americans who rely on it to help with their daily meals, according to the report. Of that, 873,657 of those people using SNAP are in New Jersey, according to Pallone's office. 

In addition to the Farm Bill vote, a cut in SNAP funding was already scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 1, as a result of the sequester, Pallone said.

As the kitchen geared up to serve lunch, Pallone stood before the serving line with student volunteers, Elijah's Promise Executive Director Lisanne Finston, and New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition Director Adele LaTourette, and blamed the cuts on "Tea Party" Republicans

"It's embarrassing what's happening in Washington," he said. 

Pallone said the Farm Bill has to go before the Senate for final approval, and politicians have talked of holding a conference to take a look at the SNAP component to see what else can be done with it.

However, he does not have much hope that the politicians appointed to that conference will fight for it, he said.

Finston said that food assistance is a component of the "American way of life," in which assistance is available to people who are unemployed or going through rough times.

The SNAP cuts would "shred that safety net," Finston said. 

If the SNAP cuts go through as proposed, places like Elijah's Promise would see longer lines for food, more people in need of social services and many of them "falling through the cracks" as needs become greater, Finston said. 

In New Jersey, about 897,376 people lived below the poverty line in 2011, 394,240 of them children, according to statistics provided by the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition. 

Places like Elijah's Promise were "never intended" to make up for federal assistance, and would become "simply incapable" of helping everyone in need if funding was drastically reduced, LaTourette said.