Public Policy & Advocacy

Federal Policy

Federal policy establishes funding for hunger-relief programming through two major legislative vehicles and an annual appropriations process.

Additionally, other federal programs like Medicaid, Medicare, EITC, and low-income housing vouchers also provide vital services and income supports to our friends and neighbors at risk of hunger. 

Learn more about how these important legislative proposals and potential reforms will affect the people we serve.

Please sign up to be a Feeding Wisconsin Hunger Fighter to get more information and how you can get involved. 

Federal Cuts to Nutrition Programs

The House budget resolution passed by a narrow margin of 217-215. This resolution may necessitate massive cuts to critical federal programs, with significant implications for nutrition programs, with a proposed reduction in agricultural spending of $230 billion.

The Senate is working on its own budget resolution, and the two chambers will need to reach an agreement on the provisions in their bills before the budget proposal proceeds. If they do agree, the next step will be to determine how to implement the proposed cuts

Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have stated their commitment to passing a bipartisan farm bill that strengthens our nation’s agriculture, food and conservation programs. The best way forward is to allow these leaders to work on the farm bill without additional delay or spending reductions due to budget reconciliation instructions to the programs under their jurisdiction.

Please call or send a letter urging congressional leaders to reject any cuts to nutrition, agriculture or conservation programs in budget reconciliation legislation. Any cuts to Farm Bill programs will only make a bipartisan farm bill reauthorization more difficult.

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The Farm Bill

Like Child Nutrition Reauthorization, every five years, Congress will work on a Farm Bill, which sets forth the agricultural and hunger-relief policies for our country. Most notably, it sets the funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which provides food banks and food pantries with free commodity foods, The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides free commodity foods for Older Americans with low, fixed incomes, and establishes and funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps and known in Wisconsin as FoodShare or Quest).

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) supplements the food budgets of low-income households with monthly benefits via an electronic benefit (EBT) card used at authorized retail stores. SNAP serves households with gross incomes up to 130% of the poverty line, although some states have opted to raise the gross income threshold. All households must have a net income below 100% of the poverty line.

Nationally, SNAP is one of the most important tools in the fight against hunger, providing families with the supplemental grocery benefits to buy the food for their families. In conjunction with food banks, community groups, churches and volunteer organizations, SNAP helps to strengthen communities by providing the food and nutrition people need.

Annual Appropriations Process

Some of the nutrition programs that are authorized through the Farm Bill and the Child Nutrition Act are mandatory programs. This means, that funding is set through the legislative process and generally cannot be cut through annual budgeting cycles.

However, some programs, like WIC and CSFP, are discretionary programs and as such, they are subject to the annual budgeting process where Congress determines and appropriates funds to thousands of federal programs.

This means that important nutrition programs like WIC, which helps pregnant moms and newborns get the vital nutrient building blocks they need for a healthy life, can be cut every year.  

Healthcare Reform

We believe that access to high quality, affordable healthcare is a fundamental building block of a healthy and hunger-free Wisconsin.

With the majority of the households utilizing the emergency food system in Wisconsin reporting a member of their family dealing with diet related diseases and facing the tough choices between medical care and food or unpaid medical bills and other household expenses, the need to expand access, lower costs and improve quality is urgent.

The American Healthcare Act (AHCA) was introduced by the House of Representatives on March 6, 2017. As the replacement bill to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), AHCA aimed to reduce healthcare costs for Americans but was pulled from consideration on March 24th, 2017 due to a lack of bi-partisan support.

It was estimated that in a decade, over 200,000 Wisconsinites would have lost healthcare coverage.

As the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land, we urge our state to join the majority of other states in expanding the BadgerCare (Medicaid) program and choosing to take the enhanced federal funds that our legislators have chosen to leave on the table.

Wisconsin did not choose to take the traditional Medicaid expansion under ACA where the Federal government would have increased its funding to cover up to 90% of Medicaid expenditures. By choosing to take a hybrid expansion, our state has chosen to pay its own way without the help of Federal funds. While this has expanded coverage to some low-income families, it has also been an expensive choice for the state. 

By choosing to take the full Medicaid expansion today, our state can still save hundreds of millions a year even with the uncertainty with the AHCA. These funds could be reinvested for a more sustainable and effective state healthcare program that would move us forward toward healthy, hunger-free and thriving Wisconsin communities.