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Show ! x Your Man In Washington By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch Time For Food Stamp Reform On April 14th President Presi-dent Jimmy Carter said. " will resist to the utmost of my ability excessive spending by the Congress in fiscal year 19711, and I am going to oppose strongly strong-ly any spending substitution substitu-tion for projects that might be non-vital and which might initiate permanent programs or expenditures that can't be controlled in the future. " Can a President of less than six months stand-up to Congress? Congress is apparently determined to find out with the recently passed Farm Bill. As it now stands the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977 contains price supports for wheat and other food grains which far exceed what the President has said he will accept; but this is only1 part of his dilemma. The most expensive expen-sive portion of the bill is the Food Stamp program. As authorized in the Senate's Farm Bill, delivery of food stamps has been liberalized at a time when public opinion polls call for reform. Under the bill's provisions permitting a family of four with an annual income of up to $10,610 to receive food stamps, half the population of the state of Utah would be eligible. The lawmakers went one step further by eliminating the purchase requirement for the stamps. Previously a family has been required to spend 20 of its income to purchase food stamps, unless the family was at the bottom of the poverty scale. Now, however. stamps will be freely given to anyone who can qualify, at an increased cost to the American taxpayers of some $2 billion. Aside from being totally contrary to the President's request of April 14th, the action appears to completely eliminate the incentive for many families to become productive. During debate on the Farm Bill several Senators made an attempt to limit widespread fraud in the Food Stamp program. Senator Carl Curtis (R-Nebr.) (R-Nebr.) asked for photo-identification photo-identification of food stamp recipients, crosschecking cross-checking for duplicate applications, ap-plications, and an income survey. These are steps required re-quired of most citizens to cash a personal check. A similar program cut the caseload in one Eastern state by 11 and saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Despite projected nationwide nation-wide savings of approximately approx-imately $90 million, the Curtis proposal was defeated. This Congress is obviously not interested in controlling food stamp fraud at the present time. A U t a h n who watched the Senate debate on the Farm Bill was overheard to say later, "Every good idea and every program or proposed change that seemed to have merit was rejected. It looked to me like the sponsors spon-sors of this bill had only one thing in mind . . . make the President Presi-dent back down. " How will the President respond? res-pond? i - |