FILE
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, [D-Vt.], was joined by several of his colleagues as well as the governor of Oregon during a phone call with the media to discuss what could be the largest cut to the federal supplemental nutrition program in history, but it’s not just kids, seniors, the disabled and veterans who will be affected by the $280 billion cut being considered by Republicans.
“Families lose and billionaires win,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon.
“Republicans are not looking out for their constituents who depend on these federal programs,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-New Mexico, where one in four residents rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “They’re just lying to them. That’s what’s happening right now. Republicans are looking out for the wealthiest Americans and corporate interests. Plain and simple.”
Since its inception in 1964 as the Food Stamp Act, SNAP has been 100-percent funded by the federal government. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden Administration increased SNAP benefits by 21 percent, resulting from a re-evaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan, which is used to calculate SNAP benefits. The re-evaluation considered current food prices, dietary guidance, and consumption patterns. Now, Republicans are proposing cuts to SNAP as one of the ways to finance tax cuts championed by the Trump Administration.
“It will be devastating to states if this federal money is taken to give more tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires,” said Lujan.
“They’ll pay for it by taking meals off the table for kids,” said Welch. “They’ll pay for it by kicking seniors out of nursing homes. This is real. This is not just political rhetoric.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, said 42 million Americans will be affected by the SNAP cuts being considered by Republicans, and that doesn’t count threatened cuts to Medicaid and increasing costs due to tariffs.
“They say they want states to have some skin in the game. … [But] their plan is to just push a bunch of these costs over to the states and it’s going to force states to cut benefits, eligibility, or both,” said Klobuchar. “It also means that local non-profit community organizations, food banks, schools, will be left trying to pick up the pieces.”
In addition to cutting $280 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years, Republicans are also looking to trim Medicaid to pay for the tax cuts, said Welch.
“This tax cut [will] add over $4 trillion to the deficit and it will be paid for by, among other things, taking away the $2-a-meal that is available to folks who are receiving SNAP benefits,” said Welch. “I’m not even sure Elon Musk can do better than two bucks a meal. This is really about taking away basic nutritional security that is so absolutely essential to the well-being of our families and our kids in Vermont and in every single state across the nation. … It’s much less about a tax cut than it is about benefit cut. It’s about taking things away from people who need and depend on them.”
Tina Kotek, governor of Oregon, said SNAP benefits are also an essential economic driver.
“More than 3,500 retailers across Oregon take these benefits,” she said. “Every SNAP dollar generates about a dollar fifty to a dollar eighty in economic activity. That’s money spent at grocery stores, farmers markets, and local businesses in every corner of Oregon … When families lose benefits, local economies will take a hit. … The entire community feels it.”
“I have a lot of constituents who are farmers and ranchers who carefully plan their farming season around what grocery stores and food banks will need,” said Lujan. “They spend time based on these programs, investing money, securing water resources and planting seeds.”
“We’re not just talking about numbers on a page, we’re talking about people,” said Ivy Enoch, a SNAP policy and training lead at Hunger Free Vermont. “Even the possibility of SNAP cuts is creating real harm, and we’re hearing from Vermonters who are very worried, people who are already budgeting every dollar, worried about whether they’ll suddenly lose this vital support. … Proposals to make deep, devastating cuts to SNAP can’t be justified ever, but even less so now, not when food prices are rising, not when families are already stretched … these cuts would increase hunger.”
Lujan said these cuts being considered by Republicans are not fiscally responsible.
“It’s taking away from the hungry across America to make billionaires and millionaires, even wealthier, and it’s going to even explode the deficit.”
New Mexico has the highest SNAP participation rate in the nation, due to a number of factors, including relatively generous eligibility requirements, a high poverty rate, and a state-level initiative to streamline the application process.
Other states with high SNAP dependency include Louisiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, Virginia, Alabama and Nevada.
Wyden called the cuts a “health care double whammy.”
“The combination of less food assistance for seniors and kids and then Republican cuts in Medicaid is a prescription for a sicker America,” he said. Nobody should lose access to nutrition and nobody should lose quality health care to pay for tax breaks for the people at the very top.”
Story Written by Bob Audette, Bennington Banner