Skip to main content
search
Opinion

Has Iowa completely lost its mind? Or, maybe Iowa failed sharing in kindergarten?

By January 31, 2023No Comments

A proposal for banning fresh meat, flour, and butter from SNAP has been submitted by Iowa’s state House Speaker Pat Grassley, to the state Legislature.  Read it in House File 3.

Pat Grassley — grandson of Senator Chuck Grassley, wants to cut costs on USDA’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, better known as SNAP.  Apparently, Grandpa Grassley failed to teach grandson Grassley that USDA fully funds the program, including making decisions about eligibility and what foods SNAP requires and pay sfor.  The only exception is for some management fees that happen at the state level.

Need we remind Iowa’s farmers and ranchers that Iowa ranks as the largest exporter of soybeans ($3.6 billion), pork ($2.0 billion), corn ($1.7 billion), feeds and fodder ($1.0 billion), and processed grain products ($775 million) in the United States.   What grandson Grassley is promoting should be reframed as an example of how the Iowa legislature bites the hands that feed it.  As a reminder:  Pork = meat; corn and processed grain products can = flour; and Iowa’s last surviving dairy farmers should be treasured for any butter they can still produce.
It must be noted that Grandpa Grassley has served on the Senate Ag Committee for an extremely long time, and Grandpa Grassley has voted for many Farm Bills.   All funding for SNAP is found in the Farm Bill.
This makes us wonder:  surely Grandpa and his grandson Grassley see each other often enough to have ample time to share information?  Or maybe Grandpa Grassley only returns for grandson Grassley’s swearing-in?  Or maybe while US House Republicans work diligently to stop payments for things like SNAP, Social Security, and Medicare, all that Congress has already agreed to fund, Grandpa Grassley is plotting how he can help them.  If he did, it would be Grandpa Grassley’s  last nail in the legacy “coffin” … that he denied all the things he supported over the years as he joined the effort to explode the national and world economies.
The foundation for SNAP was first built in 1933 as part of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA).  FDR signed the bill in 1933.  By 1939, the program operated as a pilot to help people on relief to buy orange stamps equal to their usual food expenditures.  The stamps qualified people to receive half the value in blue stamps  The combination of 100% orange stamps received plus 50% blue stamps, resulted in an increase of 50% in poor people’s food purchases.  This not only helped feed hungry people but also helped stabilize farm producers in desperate financial shape.
3.  2014 – The Agricultural Act.  Expanded the definition of retailer to include government agencies and not-for-profits that purchase and deliver food to the elderly and/or disabled, allowed for testing of home delivery for vulnerable populations, and allowed agricultural producers who market directly to consumers to accept EBT.

To learn more about SNAP’s origins, and responsibilities, read here.    To learn more about grandson Grassley’s efforts to block poor people from Iowa’s healthy food, click below:

Aimee Picchu reports for CBS Moneyline:     One state wants to cut food-stamp spending.  Their plan: Ban fresh meat, flour and butter.

Author Barbara Leach is a former Iowa family farmer and Founder/Editor of My Rural America Action Fund.