More than 2 million low-income individuals in Illinois rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
for food aid, but the program could face a big setback under U.S. House
Budget Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R, WI-1) proposed budget released last week.
Ryan’s plan aims to block grant the flexible SNAP program, which has about 47 million participants.
Under
the plan, the federal government would give pots of cash to states to
run the program, leaving them to customize it to their recipients’ needs
and determine eligibility requirements.
“Like Medicaid,
SNAP suffers from a flawed structure,” the budget plan says. “States
receive more money if they enroll more people in the program — so their
incentive is to get people onto the rolls. They have little incentive to
help people get off the rolls and find work. In fact, these programs
make it harder to become independent.”
That’s not the right approach, said Beverly Henry, associate professor of nutrition and dietetics at Northern Illinois University’s College of Health and Human Sciences.
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With a little more than a month remaining in the spring legislative
session in Springfield, advocates for Illinois children say it's
important to understand the factors driving the state's fiscal year 2014
budget debate and what can be done to help avoid damaging cuts to
education and other critical programs. 
The AFL-CIO launched its updated and expanded 
Saying it willingly accepts “mindless” cuts of the sequester, the budget proposal from 
With no resolution in sight when it comes to finding a balance between bringing down the federal deficit and ensuring that the social safety net stays intact, many of the nation’s
most vulnerable citizens are concerned about the future of Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid.