Politics

Missouri editorial boards split on Nixon’s plan to cut food stamp recipients

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Screen Shot 2013-10-10 at 2.00.11 PM– Traditionally liberal editorial boards in Kansas City and St. Louis are split on Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s new proposal to trim the ranks of the state’s food stamp recipients.

In Kansas City, the editorial page of the Kansas City Star favored Nixon’s position, with the headline, “Emergency food stamp help can’t last forever in Missouri and Kansas.” On the other side of the state, however, the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s view was much different, claiming “Nixon move to cut food aid undercuts his support for most vulnerable.”

Nixon’s proposal, first reported on Tuesday in the Kansas City Star, aims to remove Missouri from a federal waiver that allows unemployed adults without children to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, without having to meet certain work requirements.

The waiver has allowed some 58,000 people to join the program, paid for 100 percent by the federal government until 2015, the paper reported. But the Nixon administration has sought to change the eligibility rules because “the recession is over and the economy is growing.”

“This is one awful decision,” the Post Dispatch Editorial Board wrote. “The SNAP program is entirely paid for by the federal government. Turning that money down, when it costs the state nothing and helps feed the hungry, not only makes no sense, it’s simply cruel. In fact, it undercuts the very argument Mr. Nixon, a Democrat, has rightly been making in urging the Republican-controlled Legislature to expand Medicaid for the working poor. The federal government is paying the freight for the economic benefits flowing directly to Missouri.”

The Post Dispatch’s western counterpart, however, took a different view.

“[E]mergency aid programs need to have a sunset or policymakers may be reluctant to free up aid in the next crisis,” the Star’s editorial board wrote. “The great majority of food stamp recipients are parents, and most work. While certain elements of the SNAP program, such as the waiver for childless adults, are ripe for trimming, the better approach is to make sure people earn enough to make food aid unnecessary.”

Nixon’s proposal still has to go through a one-month review period by the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules before the administrative change could go into effect.