FRAC Response to President Bush's
FY 2005 Budget Proposal

FRAC is disappointed that the President's FY 2005 Budget Proposal fails to provide new investments to increase access to the federal Child Nutrition Programs.

This omission is particularly glaring given the US Department of Agriculture's stated goals in the Budget of reducing hunger, combating obesity, and improving nutritional status. A spate of recent studies have shown that the best way to accomplish those goals is to reach more children and families with the benefits of the federal nutrition programs.

Published reports just weeks ago had indicated that the President was considering a major hunger initiative to reduce child hunger – a critical and eminently reachable goal priority – our nation with its great wealth but 34 million people in hungry and food insecure households. But this budget does not move in that direction.

Preliminary Analysis of Nutrition Program Funding in the President's FY2005 Budget

Child Nutrition Programs, WIC, Food Stamps, Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP)

Program descriptions:

The child nutrition programs include the School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program (which provides meals and snacks to children in low-income areas during the summer months) and Child and Adult Care Food Program (which provides meals and snacks to children in child care centers, family child care homes, and after school programs). WIC provides a monthly food package to low-income women, infants and children at nutritional risk, as well as nutrition counseling and medical referrals. The Food Stamp Program provides low-income households with monthly allotments to purchase food at stores. The provides supplemental foods to low-income elderly and, to a lesser extent, to low-income women, infants and children. The Farmers Market Nutrition Program provides vouchers to WIC participants to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets. The Emergency Food Assistance Program provides commodities and administrative funds to emergency food operations serving low-income households. The Community Food and Nutrition Program provides funds to local and state organizations to fight hunger and improve the nutrition of low-income households by expanding access to the federal nutrition programs.

The child nutrition programs and the Food Stamp Program are entitlements. WIC, CSFP, FMNP, TEFAP and CFNP are discretionary programs. Together, these programs function as the nation's anti-hunger safety net with the goal of ensuring that all low-income people in the U.S. have access to a nutritionally adequate diet.

The Impact of the President's proposal:

ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS

Child Nutrition Programs
The President's budget anticipates that the child nutrition programs will be reauthorized in 2004, but contains no funds to expand program access. The budget fully funds the child nutrition programs and provides for the extension of a number of expiring provisions, including the participation of for profit child care centers in CACFP, so that all aspects of the programs can operate without interruption. The budget also makes unelaborated references to improvements in child nutrition program integrity and the nutritional quality of meals.

Food Stamp Program
The budget contains a Food Stamp Program reserve of $3 billion as a cushion for meeting increased participation. It assumes as a goal reducing the average payment error rate in the program to 7.4 percent for 2005 (compared with an 8.3 percent rate in 2002). The budget also proposes to exclude combat-related pay when determining food stamp benefits for members of the armed forces.

DISCRETIONARY PROGRAMS

WIC
Click here for further analysis of WIC.

Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)
The Administration proposes to cut the Commodity Supplemental Food Program by 12 million dollars - from $110 million to $98 million. (The cut is, in reality, much greater since CSFP had carryover funding from FY03 to help meet projected caseloads for FY04. That additional carryover funding has been expended and there is no projected carryover funding for FY05.)

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)
The budget would continue the Emergency Food Assistance Program at FY 2004 levels.

Farmers Market Nutrition Program
The budget proposal shows a $7 million decrease in funding for the Farmers Market Nutrition Program - from $27 million to 20 million.

Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP)
Funding for the Community Food and Nutrition Program is "zeroed-out" in this budget.

For the full FY 2005 budget report, click here.

For a White House summary of the Agriculture budget, click here.

Detailed budget estimates for the Dept. of Agriculture, click here.

For the USDA budget summary, click here.

For the USDA February 2nd press release, click here.