>> welcome to al jazeera. i'm tony harris. here are the headlines. 13 people are dead after begunmen opened fire at -- gu gunmen oopped fire. one of the shooters is dead but authorities say they are searching for at least one other person of interest. at least 3,000 people work where the shooting took place. u.n. inspectors say there's clear and convincing evidence that syria used chemical weapo weapons, secretary ban ki-moon says the results are quhoam whon and indisputable rks -- overwhelming and indisputable.

more than 1200 people are still unaccounted for in flooding that stretches ore colorado's counties, the governor melt with fema to address regulation cue and recovery empth. president said a lot more needs to be done. to help rebuild the u.s. economy. he also addressed concerns of raising the debt ceiling by saying, "let's pay our bills on time and pass a budget." those are the headlines. more next hour. inside story is next. >> as the government's fiscal year comes to an end the farm bill is tied up in knots. and with it, the fate of food stamps and the lives of 47 million mains.

the inside story in washington on al jazeera america. if hello, i'm libby casey. a reason gallup poll says one in five americans doesn't have enough money to buy food for themselves and their family. the future of the food stamp safety net is in questions. on inside story we'll unravel the politics of hunger, how to feed everyone in the land of plenty. we begin at a foot bank a short drive from the u.s. capitol. >> i just can't afford the prices. and that's one of the reasons why i thank god for places like this. you know? that i can come by and get nutrition food, you know, and a

lot of it, you know what i mean? that will last me for a while. you know. if i had to go in the store to buy what i have here now, it will probably cost me $150, you know what i mean. and i just don't have it. i got $76 from food stamps, you know what i mean? and $76 in the grocery store don't go that far. >> 47 million americans rely on food stamps. officially known and is supplemental nutrition assistance plan. or snap. cutting $4 billion from food stamps over ten years. drippinstripping from the house, house republicans are pledging even dweeper cuts, $-- deeper

cuts. republicans say the programming has gotten too big. >> this legislation restores the bipartisan welfare reforms adopted in 1996 to the supplemental nutritional assistance program. it focus he the program on those who need it most. no law abide bing bitch willbidl lose their benefits under the bill. mills of oaforts who depends -- millions of others who depend on snap. >> for the hive of me i can't understand where the republicans want to cut this program that provides food to millions of americans. i can't understand why the republican leadership wants to balance the budget on the back of the work poor.

>> a person must make less than $931 a month in order to receive more than $200. a family of four, they get around $660 for month. federal benefits are sometimes too lean to keep a family fed. >> do you have a lot of pickups this morning? >> jessica kogan runs food for others, a northern virginia food bank. >> in the last couple of months we've seen the demand for our services get even higher than the past year which was already quite high. our numbers went way up during the height of the recession and they came down a little bit and leveled off but we saw an increase again lately. >> kogan wonders how the difference can be made up if congress lessens food stamps. >> their needs as i mentioned

are very high. so we're going to have to try to get more food in. and since 90% of our food is donated i don't know where we're going oget it. but we're going to rely on the community to come forward and bring us food. >> at the end of today's show we'll take you back to food for others to hear firsthand from people struggling with hunger. for the present time let's talk about food. bill thompson and tom philpot, we're also joined by allison cohen, the senior program director of why hunger, which builds grass roots antipoverty movement. bill, what are they fieting over with the -- fighting over over

the snap program? >> they say this is an out of control program that people are becoming dependent upon and not lifting themselves up because they have these resources and other side sees this as a growing and expanding program to meet a growing and expanding problem that they have been seeing hard times and this helps them from hitting bottom. >> allison cohen? >> i think the primary reason for increase it is higher than it ever has been since we started you know looking at these numbers, some years ago. we've got more americans up to 49 million americans that are hungry today. and increase of course is due to the downturn in the economy, the economic recession, but also the growing inequality in this country. so a growing economy alone is not going to have a tremendous impact on hunger and on the number of people that are relying on food stamps. we also have to address the issue of the growing inequality

between the rich and the poor and at the root of that is living wage jobs. >> we'll talk more about the big picture in a little while but i wanted to dig into the debate in congress. bill thompson, democrats want to hold study if not, make some concessions for cuts. what are the arguments on both sides as far as how they validate their actions? >> well you started out with both the house and senate making cuts to try to cut back on fraud, abuse, waste. and then, the senate passed a bill with $4 billion in cuts that go towards that. on the house side, there was even more cuts. $20 billion. and they said -- house members said this goes really towards stemming the problem. but there was a little bit of a revolt. on the house side the leadership said this doesn't get at the problem. this sort of staunches it but we

want steep cuts. >> these are house republicans? >> these are house republicans. on the other side, liberal democrats said no, this has gone too far. there essentially was a tax on both sides hitting the middle. >> tom philpot the farm bill and food stamps are strange bed fellows, how did they end up together in american politics? >> well, the way that it functioned for a long time is that you've had the farm bill programs which are basically payment for farmers that produce the sort of big commodity crops in american agriculture, corn, soy, cotton, things like that, coupled with the food stamp program that created this coalition, going back 30? 40 years, coalition of people in congress who would vote for farm bills because of the food stamp

prowfertions and rural -- provisions and rural programs, increasingly over the years expensive farm programs. and this sort of revolt in the house that bill was talking about among right wing, the people in the house, has basically split this decades old coalition. that's where we are now. >> bill thompson why is that significant? >> could derail the farm bill. if they can't come to agreement you may not have a farm bill. the dairy producers the corn producers, the soy bane producers are all looking for reforms and -- soybean producers are all looking for reforms. we all had a drought last year, this could derail. this could have to extend further the old way of doing things. and a lot of people don't like where that would be going. >> why -- go ahead allison.

>> i was going to say, one thing people don't realize speaking of strange bed fellows, is corporate interest and snap are intertwined. who does that ultimately benefit? it is really a tax subsidy a large tax subsidy for the large retailers like walmart and kroger, as well as even j.p. morgan chase who administrators snam -- administers snap k the abt program. food and farm issues being inter29ed, the majority of us don't realize how much snap is really benefiting corporate agriculture. >> bill thompson if no agriculture bill gets passed this month, what happens to the program? >> it will keep going but there won't be any reform. so there was a report released by usda, quietly released that

fraud is on the rise. people are taking advantage of this. and there are ways to cut down on this, in both measures. both the house and senate. and so if they don't -- if they don't do any type of reform, you're going osee this type -- to see this type of thing go on. but people -- the program won't end. >> let's talk about this idea. allison, there were examples of fraud in the food stamp program. certainly nothing new. how many validity do you give those claims and how damage are they to the program? >> they damaging. i said a minute ago i really do think snap needs to be reformed and one of the ways it could be reformed is to shift the subsidies going to corporate agriculture is programs in the women and fit and children farmers markets programs.

supplemental assistance nutrition programs. in large part we are not doing enough in snap to ensure that folks are getting access to good nutrition foods locally grown. >> tom philpott, you are a food writer joining us from austin right now. how much nutrition and the value of foods we talk about federal subsidies to help with poverty? >> you know i think allison is exactly right. right now, the great bulk of that money going through snap does go through a few very large grocery chains including walmart. and that's a problem. but i really have to say that you know right now, we have 7.5% unemployment and it's kind of ridiculous to be talking about slashing food aid. i think reforming food aids along the way allison is talking about makes a lot of sense. but the idea of willy-nilly

cutting it at this time is ridiculous. if you want to cut snap payments what you do is grow the economy. and there's an economic consensus among economists that to grow the economy you need more spending. and we have massive infrastructure needs in this country. and a spending program to invest in infrastructure would do a lot to bring down unemployment, and at the same time, bring down snap enrollment. it's just -- that's what we should be arguing about. >> yeah, and tom i agree with you but i think it's not just about growing the economy. it's about addressing this issue of the growing inequality. we can't really -- having a job -- creating new jobs isn't enough. it's creating jobs that actually pay a living wage. >> we'll get more about that in just a moment. when we come back the politics of hunger and also, how to solve the greater problem of food insecurity in america. stay with us.

>> welcome back to inside story. we're talking about the hungry and food insecurity in america. still with us phil thompson senior agriculture reporter for politico. tom jones, co-founder for maverick farms. we're joined by allison cohen, author of why hunger, which builds grass roots antipoverty movement. food stamps is an antiquated program that's hung on. tell us what happens when a person gets government assistance and goes into the store to buy groceries. >> it's not referred to as food stamps. it is referred to as snap,

supplemental nutrition assistance programs. they emphasize both the supplemental and the nutritional aspect of the program. really at its core purpose. there's no such thing as a food stamp, you get an ebt card that works like a credit card. it looks just like a credit card and it helps with destigmatizing that. and as was said previously in the segment it depends very much on your income level. so if you're a family of four living off the ridiculously low rate of a little over $1,000 a month then you can qualify to participate in the snap program. and typically that does not get a family through the month. we, why hunger, the national hunger hot line we're hearing from families all the time, saying hey my snap benefits ran

out, there's still a week left in the month, i'm not sure hour i can feed my family, can you connect me locally to where i can get food? we hear that more and more often. >> what do you do with that problem? >> we connect them directly to, we have a large database of all the soup kitchens and food pantries across the country and connect them directly to the most local place to corresponds to their zip code. >> and tom philpoth how does the community aspect enter in where does local involvement come into play? >> well i think at the level that we're talking about, we're talking of allison just said it, $1,000 a month, that would be $12,000 a year for a family of four. at that level i think we need some national assistance here. definitely. i think we do have an economy now that is built largely on low wage jobs.

our biggest employer ask walmart in the united states. and for that reason i think there's got to be a federal you know safety net that captures people at that level. now from there i think in addition to that, i think that communities all across the country in new york city, here in austin, in the north carolina appalachia in the, the farm i work on, people are organizing to figure out how to sort of marble community resources -- marshal community resources, urban gardening opportunities, businesses that take raw materials from farms and turn them 52 food that people can eat -- into food that people can eat. how to marshal this into things that work for every community and broaden access to fresh, healthy food.

those are very necessary but at the same time when you have got a massive population of people making so very little the federal government has got to step in. and you know it's not -- it doesn't make economic sense to have people going hungry. when people go hungry they get sick. when they get sick someone has got to pay the health care bill for them. they obviously don't have the resources to pay health care themselves, so it's an economically -- societies that feed the hungry are making a positive economic decision. and it's obvious. >> bill thompson how much of these broader conversations are coming into play from washington, d.c, we are hearing from our other guests about innovative ways how hunger looks like and how it's dealt with in the united states. is that coming up in the farm bill? >> it's very important, food stamps are not tied to nutrition but the government has started

making pilot programs to try to do that and get people to use food stamps at your -- you know local places where they can get more nutrition farmers markets, absolutely. but it's unfortunately what does come into play a lot here on capitol hill are these outliers. you see stories of people who win the lottery but continue to get food stamps. thaings would enrage people -- things that would enrage people. fending on what side you're on, there are reports of some people who use their food stamps to buy lobster and champagne. most people, i think the average income for a family is $8,000, $9,000, that get these food stamps. >> a year? >> rite, a year, not a month, a year. that's the average. so these are people that you know need help. but they do face a problem.

when you can bring out these sort of outlying pictures that say oh, you know, this looks crazy, how could these people do it? >> so allison cohen what's one change that you have made to the broader issue of hunger in america? >> i would first of all just to build on what bill was saying just now is that you know, these are anomalies. these stories of people you know abusing the snap program, those are really anomalies. and what we are seeing, we work with thousands of grass roots organizations around the country. what we are seeing are some of the most innovative solutions to deal with hunger and poverty at a local level. that's what we're witnessing and we're seeing those same families who are living on $8,000 a year working to maybe perhaps participating in an urban farm. beginning to use their ebt benefits at their local farmers

market. and we see them more than that organizing together. just last month there was a -- actually walmart workers were protesting their low wages in 50 cities across the country. so we're beginning slowly to sort of vee this swelling, growing grass roots -- see this swelling, growing grass roots movement of we can't live on these low wages, something has to change. >> tom philpott how do you turning these ploal movements and turn -- local movements and turn them into a national movement? >> we saw a spark in occupy wall street and i think we'll have more spark ahead. economy grinds ahead with slow growth, slow job growth, zero or negative wage, median wage growth. and the massive inequality that allison has already talked about. >> thank you so much, tom

philpott allison cohen, and bill thompson. we'll be right back.

>> welcome back to inside story. before we end our show on food insecurity. let's take a local look at the national problem. a community food bank that's just a short drive from the nation's capital. >> we feed 400 to 600 families every night of the week monday through friday and they represent a huge cross section of society. you would never know them from looking on the street and say oh that's somebody who has something wrong with them and they probably need help, it's not like that. it's working people and people who are struggling to get by with the high cost of living in this country. they come to us, for a variety of reasons, it could be a suddenly health problem in their family. it could be that they lost their job. >> as of two weeks ago i am not working. there is no work. i have friends who haven't found work for two or three months.

we work one week and then there's no work for two weeks. so it's uncertain. for the people who do repairs, nothing is stable. >> my husband was lost -- out of work because of the sequestration situation and we're both senior citizens and it's been really tough to find work. i'm looking myself. in the meantime, we've spent you know what resources we have. and we had to use food stamps. >> the cost of living if this area is so high that even people who are working have to get a little bit of help in some cases to pay all of their bills. >> the price of food is very high. if there isn't work, there isn't food in the house. >> i used to actually deliver here with my church. and it just -- you just never know when you might find yourself in a situation. the food stamps for us, for two adults, are -- is $216 a month.

and that certainly is very helpful. but programs, community food bamplebanks are there to suppleo you don't find yourself going hungry. >> if there weren't places like this, i don't know what i would do. a child doesn't know how to cope with hunger. when i tell him, i don't have anything to feed you, he doesn't understand that there's no food. >> that's it for now from the team in washington, d.c. and for me, libby casey. you can log on to our facebook page or send us your thoughts at twitter. our handle is@aj am.

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