The House has defeated the $500 billion farm bill that would have imposed radical cuts on food stamps for low-income Americans. The measure called for $20 billion in cuts to the food stamps program over the next decade. Nearly two million people would have lost access to food stamps, and 200,000 children would have been denied school lunches. Before the overall vote, Republicans also passed an amendment that would have allowed states to impose work requirements on food stamp recipients. Speaking on the House floor, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, herself a former food stamp recipient, denounced what she called a further attack on poor families.

Rep. Barbara Lee: “I know from personal experience, no one wants to be on food stamps. Many who are on SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] are hard-working people making minimum wage, and others are desperately looking for a job in these difficult economic times. This amendment demands that hungry families search for a job even while it eliminates all employment assistance and job training funds for those very families. Let’s not pretend that by making a family suffer more hunger and more desperation and more hardship, that a job will suddenly appear for them.”

Although the work requirement amendment passed, 62 Republicans ultimately helped Democrats defeat the overall legislation because they wanted even deeper cuts than the bill proposed. After the vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi mocked Republicans, calling their handling of the farm bill a “demonstration of major amateur hour.”