PHILIP BRASHER, AP Farm Writer
Saturday, October 20, 2001
10:02 PDT WASHINGTON (AP)

Supported by the Bush administration, Congress is considering restoring food stamps for some legal immigrants and making it easier for the working poor to qualify for the benefits.

As part of an overhaul of farm and nutrition programs, states also could be offered financial incentives to enroll more people for the $17 billion-a-year program and for timely handling of applications.

A farm bill passed by the House this month would increase monthly benefits for 1.5 million families, streamline the application process and allow families leaving welfare to keep getting food stamps for up to six months. The cost would come to about $300 million a year.

Legislation introduced in the Senate with the White House's support would loosen eligibility rules even further and allow many immigrants to enroll for the program at a total cost of up to $1 billion a year. The bill is sponsored by Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the Senate Agriculture Committee's ranking Republican.

"We're still encouraging people to work. This is ensuring that they have enough food to feed themselves," said Eric Bost, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for food and nutrition services.

Bost, who was Texas welfare chief when President Bush was the state's governor, advised Lugar's aides in drafting the bill.

Lugar's bill is unlikely to become law because it includes a phaseout of crop subsidies. But the administration's support for higher spending on food stamps could create a split between Democrats who want to do the same and others who want to use some of that money for farm subsidies.

Food stamp rolls have fallen from 25.5 million in 1996, when Congress overhauled the welfare system, to 17.6 million this year.

Part of the drop was due to the welfare law, which disqualified immigrants, and the strong economy in the late 1990s, but many people who are eligible for the benefits also have dropped out of the program, according to studies.

Fewer than 60 percent of eligible people participated in 1998, compared with nearly 75 percent in 1994.

"Today's program as it exists is so complex that it discourages people from going through the application process. In some cases they get fed up and leave," said Douglas Howard, director of Michigan's social services department

The most contested change Congress is likely to consider is restoring benefits to low-income immigrants. Lugar's bill would allow immigrants to qualify if they have worked in the country for at least four years, compared with 10 years in current law, or if they have lived in the United States for at least five years.

Many Democrats, who control the Senate, want to restore benefits to all immigrants who entered the country after the 1996 welfare law. Republicans say a work or residency requirement is necessary to keep people from moving to the United States to take advantage of the welfare system.

The administration-backed bill also would abolish a $4,650 limit on the value of a car that food stamp recipients can own. Also, people who receive federal disability benefits automatically would become eligible for food stamps.

That bill and the House legislation would use financial incentives or changes in eligibility rules to encourage states to streamline their application processes. Some states' applications are more than 30 pages long.

Bost says federal rules intended to reduce fraud and errors in the program are so complex that they result in states making mistakes in payments.

Under Bost, Texas cut its application form in half and rewrote the language at a fourth-grade reading level while keeping the rate of payment error to 4 percent, less than half the national average.

"What we're interested in doing is simplifying the program but not compromising the program in ways that are going to result in high incidences of abuse," said Bost. "It's going to fall on us and the Congress to strike that balance."