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Letter: Cutting the Food Stamp program known as SNAP is a terrible idea

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2018, file photo, Carl Lewis in his market in Rankin, Pa. About half of Lewis' customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients worries him and other grocery operators in poor areas. Food stamp administrators across the country are expressing reservations about "America's Harvest Box," pitched by Agriculture Department officials as a way to cut costs and improve efficiency. The government is proposing to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Debbie Baskin (“Cuts to the SNAP program will take food from the mouths of babes”) is right: cutting the Food Stamp program known as Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) by 30 percent is a terrible idea.

Instead we should be increasing benefits for poor children and their families so they can eat.

A recent study found that in 99 percent of counties across the U.S. (including all 29 counties in Utah) SNAP’s maximum per a meal benefit is less than the average cost of meals low-income households purchase. In fact, that benefit is on average 30 percent too low — and the president’s budget would double that gap. Currently, the maximum per-meal benefit is $1.86. Can you feed your family on that?

Join Debbie and me in contacting our Utah congressional delegation and tell them to oppose cuts to SNAP and to instead support raising the baseline benefit amount for SNAP.

David P. Billings, Salt Lake City

By David P. Billings | The Public Forum