Farm Bill

FARM BILL:

More than 200,000 Floridians are at-risk of losing their Food Stamp benefits.  Schedule a meeting with, call or contact your Congressman today to urge them to support the Senate Farm Bill!

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Background

  • United Way of Florida NEEDS your HELP to Protect SNAP, America’s most effective anti-hunger program.

  • The U.S. Senate and House have passed their respective Farm Bills and they are headed to a Conference Committee comprised of Senators and Representatives to hammer out the differences between the two bills.

    • The Senate bill is a bi-partisan effort that maintains current SNAP eligibility requirements and builds on successful employment and training pilot projects that assist SNAP recipients attain and maintain employment.

    • The House bill was passed strictly along party lines.  It would cut $20 billion over ten years from SNAP food benefits and revise work requirements in a way that could result in more than 200,000 Floridians losing SNAP benefits, many through no fault of their own.

 

Florida Toolkits

  • Find your United Way and the county(ies) it serves together with the members of Florida’s Congressional Delegation who represent your area.

  • Click on the names of the members of your Congressional Delegation to download SNAP and ALICE information for their districts.


Local Congressional Office Information

  • Find the telephone numbers for district and Washington D.C. offices for your members of Congress.

 

The "Ask"

Use the links above to download information to take to your meetings and/or use on your calls.  When you meet with or call your members of Congress, here is what you should ask for:

  • Senators

"We support the bipartisan provisions that preserve and improve SNAP included in the Farm Bill that passed the Senate.  Please encourage your colleagues assigned to the Farm Bill Conference Committee to reject any harmful changes to SNAP and to push for the Senate’s bipartisan SNAP provisions to be included in the final conference report."

  • House Members

"We support the Senate’s bipartisan Farm Bill provisions that preserve and improve SNAP.  Please encourage your colleagues assigned to the Conference Committee to support Senate SNAP provisions in Farm Bill reconciliation."

 

Action Items

  1. Contact Your Local Congressional Delegation:  The Conference process has begun, and we need you to contact your local Congressional delegation ASAP!  Using the "Florida Toolkits" and "Local Congressional Office Information" links above, please schedule meetings with your members of Congress while they are in their District offices in August before they return to D.C. at the end of the month.  If you are not able to meet in person, please call their office and leave the "Ask" above.

  2. Sign-on Letters to Congress on SNAP:  We recommend sending your House Representatives and Senators letters on SNAP. We have templates that outline United Way’s core position going into negotiations (click for House template and Senate template).  For Senate letters, it can be helpful to do a state sign-on letter with other United Ways and/or allied organizations in your state.

  3. Send an Individual Letter to Your Members of Congress:  This only takes a moment.  Fill out the United Way portal information and the United Way automatically sends out the letters to your House Representative and Senators.

  4. Take Action on Social Media:  Follow United Way on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  Retweet and share posts about the Farm Bill, and then use the hashtags #ProtectSNAP and #FarmBill and Tweet at and/or tag your House Representative and Senators on Facebook and Instagram and ask them to protect SNAP and vote with the Senate version of the Farm Bill.  Here are sample tweets you can use:

    • We agree with @unitedway - Congress do the right thing on the #FarmBill and embrace the Senate protections for the hungry #ProtectSNAP

    • @HouseGOP @HouseDemocrats: vote NO to taking food away from working families in proposed #FarmBill cuts to SNAP and Vote yes on the Senate version #ProtectSNAP

    • Don't assault the already limited food budgets of hungry people #ProtectSNAP #FarmBill #SNAPtoEndHunger

    • @SenateGOP @SenateDems: work with Florida’s House Reps and speak out/fight hunger in the Senate #FarmBill #ProtectSNAP

  5. Write a Letter to the Editor:  If you are a United Way org, or allied organization member, we have templates available here. If you are not please reach out to us by email at butterflylake@gmail.com and we will work with you to give you template letters and get you the area specific information you need.

 

Resources

  • 2017 Florida ALICE Report

  • OPPAGA Report - The Republican Speaker of the Florida House commissioned a research report from the legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability (OPPAGA) following discussions on sanctions and work requirements during the 2017 Legislative Session.  The research memo prepared by OPPAGA was released in January 2018.  It provides instructional information about the challenges faced by both SNAP participants and workforce agencies in regard to work requirements.