Admin to Kilili: Help reduce cost of nat’l food stamp program instead

The Fitial administration labeled Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan’s food stamp diet as “campaign tactics” and urged him instead to push for legislation that would reduce or eliminate the administrative costs associated with the proposed implementation of a national food stamp program in the CNMI.

Sablan (Ind-MP) said on Thursday he will join thousands eating on $4.87 a day—the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual in the CNMI.

By doing so, Sablan hopes to call attention to how difficult it is buy food with that amount. He will spend just that much on food for each of five days, beginning Jan. 8. Sablan hopes that his action will convince the CNMI government to work with him to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture to include the CNMI in the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Press secretary Angel Demapan said the Fitial administration agrees with the delegate that it’s not good enough.

“It won’t be good enough so long as leaders focus on petty campaign tactics instead of pushing legislation that would reduce or eliminate the hefty administrative costs hovering over the SNAP program,” Demapan said in a statement Thursday.

He also said it won’t be good enough “so long as the delegate is not pushing legislation that would reduce the local matching requirement for Medicaid.”

“Right now, he touts a $15 million federal share knowing full well that the local budget only provides up to $2 million in available matching funds. The admin feels for families who have to depend on food stamp, but we will not mislead them by shifting blame. Before we commit to such program, we owe it to our people to ensure that we will be capable of taking on additional obligations. Our people deserve both sides of every story, not just the side that sounds nice,” Demapan said.

Sablan said he was able to get a 13-percent increase for the CNMI food stamp grant in line with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That money was locked in with later annual appropriations. This year, he got another $1 million increase from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

“But it’s not good enough,” he said, that’s why he’s asking CNMI government officials to support the idea of joining the national food stamp program which would bring anywhere from $12 million to $24 million in additional money to the CNMI economy.