This Republican congressman wants to re-evaluate food stamps

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2556466

This Republican congressman wants to re-evaluate food stamps

                         

Texas Rep. Mike Conaway is promising to take a "thoughtful" look at the benefits program formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

Texas Rep. Mike Conaway wants to take a look at food stamps.

The six-term Republican was just appointed the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee — and he is promising to take a “thoughtful” look at the benefits program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“The committee will conduct a thoughtful review of all programs under its jurisdiction,” Conaway, a certified accountant in Texas, said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. “It’s only natural for much of that review to focus on nutrition programs as they account for almost 80 percent of the spending within the jurisdiction of the committee.”

The U.S. is “a generous nation that takes care of those in need,” Conway said, adding “we also must remember that every federal dollar spent is a dollar taken from a hardworking American.”

A review of the food stamp program — which benefited nearly 47 million people nationwide at a cost of about $58 billion during the 2014 fiscal year, according to the Department of Agriculture — by the committee will do so “with no preconceived notions of what does and does not work,” he said.

Approximately four million Texans participated in the SNAP program in 2013 at a cost of $6 billion, the latest data available by the Department of Agriculture shows.