While Congress delays food stamp funding, impoverished Puerto Rico residents have already started cutting back.
Myrna Izquierdo visits patients at Casa Ismael, the clinic she runs in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. By Jeff Stein and Jeff Stein Reporter for Wonkblog Email Bio Follow Josh Dawsey Josh Dawsey Reporter covering the White House Email Bio Follow March 25 at 2:10 PM TOA BAJA, PUERTO RICO — At the Casa Ismael clinic for HIV-positive men with severe health complications, the staff used to immediately change patients’ diapers after they were soiled.
The federal government provided additional food stamp aid to Puerto Rico after the hurricane, but Congress missed the deadline for reauthorization in March as it focused on other issues before leaving for a week-long recess. Federal lawmakers have also been stalled by the Trump administration, which has derided the extra aid as unnecessary.
The island would not need Congress to step in to fund its food stamps and Medicaid programs if it were a state. For U.S. states, the federal government has committed to funding these programs’ needs, whatever the cost and without needing to take a vote. But Puerto Rico instead funds its programs through a block grant from the federal government, which need to be regularly renewed, and also gives food stamp benefits about 40 percent smaller than those of U.S. states.
Trump has also privately signaled he will not approve any additional help for Puerto Rico beyond the food stamp money, setting up a congressional showdown with Democrats who have pushed for more expansive help for the island. Multiple Senate Republicans, led by Sen. David Perdue , have incorporated the $600 million for Puerto Rico in legislation aimed at helping farmers in states like Georgia who have been hurt by other storms, in a bid for broader support for their bill.
Trump also read a Wall Street Journal story from October and became convinced that bondholders and others were profiting off federal government aid — and grew furious. Since then, aides have described a president who regularly brings up the island to make sure it is not getting too much money. Current and former officials say Trump often complains in meetings that Puerto Rico doesn’t even know how to spend the money the island has been allocated.
“It helps not only these poor communities, but injects the economy with money to start running. It helps the trucker who moves the food, the janitor who cleans the store, the guy who fixes the refrigerator where the food is stored,” said Felix G. Aponte Lopez, a food supplier for Agranel. “It’s had a very positive domino effect.”
But this month, Gutierrez’s food stamp benefit fell to about $115, while a small cash supplement under the program was also cut from about $40 to around $20. As she walks through an aisle full of cooking supplies, Gutierrez said she will skip purchases of rice and beans this month, as well as detergent and cleaning supplies.
Across the room from Rivera Morales sat Rafael Veles, 82, who had already been waiting for two hours to learn how severe his benefit cut will be. His wife of 56 years has Alzheimer’s disease, and Veles — her caretaker — fears the cut will put the adult diapers he buys, at $16 for each package, outside of their budget.
Of the Puerto Ricans on the food stamp program in February 2018, about 55 percent are children, elderly or disabled, according to the preliminary findings of a forthcoming research paper by Hector Cordero-Guzman, a professor at Baruch College of the City University of New York.
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