While lawmakers consider how to enact President Donald Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda, some are warning of the impact of potential budget proposals on food and benefit programs for children and rural areas of the country.
House Republicans passed a continuing resolution on Tuesday night absent the large bill to fund the government until September, which calls for Food and Nutrition Act levels to “be the amounts necessary to maintain program levels under current law,” and lawmakers said it increases WIC, which provides nutrition assistance to mothers and children, by $500 million. However, some are raising concerns about the impacts of the broader Republican budget agenda.
A House Republican plan that aims to include large pieces of President Trump’s agenda in one bill, including tax cuts and additional funding for the southern border, would cut $1.5 trillion from health, education, and nutrition programs, according to analysis from The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, including significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
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SNAP served an average of more than 42 million participants in fiscal year 2023, accounting for more than 12% of U.S. residents, according to USDA data. Nearly 40% of benefits went to children under age 18.
“As cruel as they would be to take food off the tables of millions of Americans, the damage from Trump and House Republicans’ planned SNAP cuts goes far beyond increased hunger and hardship,” said The Century Foundation senior fellow Rachel West, who previously served on the White House Domestic Policy Council under the Biden administration. “SNAP cuts would also hurt children’s long-term outcomes, raise costs for hard-hit rural households, hurt already-strapped farmers, and shrink our economy.”
The think tank estimates, based on U.S. Census Bureau and United States Department of Agriculture data, that more than 20% of children would be impacted in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Numbers are the greatest for New Mexico (34.3%), Louisiana (28.6%), the District of Columbia (27.8%), West Virginia (26.3%), Oregon (24.5%), and Nevada (24%).
The analysis from The Century Foundation also estimates the plan would cost state economies more than $20 billion annually in benefits – based on a 20.6% cut in SNAP benefits – and could reduce a typical household’s benefit each month by at least $60, but as high as $118.62 in South Carolina, $135.97 in Alaska, and $144.39 in Hawaii.
Democrats have slammed the GOP bill, which passed the House in February. On Tuesday, House Democrats nearly unanimously opposed a separate bill to keep the government open and funded at present levels, painting it as a pretext for Republicans to continue to make cuts to government spending.
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"It's not surprising to me that House Republicans have walked the plank because of their fealty to Donald Trump. Republicans in this town no longer work for the American people. They're not even pretending,” said Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
President Trump endorsed the government funding bill and urged Republicans to vote yes on it.
Before the vote Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson disputed Democrats’ arguments against the government funding bill, painting it as entirely separate from House Republicans’ budget and taxation plans, which he separately hopes to pass before the summer.
"This clean CR contains no poison pill riders. No policy riders there at all. No cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. Zero. No cuts to veterans' benefits. Zero. In fact, as was noted, we plus up the accounts for veterans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said ahead of Tuesday’s vote. “And respectfully, I'm just going to say this to every reporter in the room, that if you're allowing Democrats to make these intentionally false, scurrilous claims without pushback, then you're aiding and abetting the spreading this misinformation."
The Trump administration, which campaigned on a promise to lower costs, has dismissed economic concerns as it has sought to trim federal spending, in part by rooting out what it considers waste, fraud, and abuse, and enacting a sweeping tariff policy, which it argues will raise revenue and boost jobs.
The SNAP program has been a focus as new agency leaders take on the task of reforming the federal government.
“We are currently looking at the entire program top to bottom. There is, obviously, will never be, never be an idea that we shouldn't be helping feed and support and sustain hungry children,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Scripps News in February. “I think the bigger question is, under Joe Biden, that program grew 38%. I think there's a significant amount of funding that was pushed into SNAP that now we're just trying to get our arms around. Where did it go? Who is it going to?
“There's a significant amount of fraud in SNAP. We just sent a letter out two nights ago about illegal aliens using the select benefit that taxpayers have supported. So is the money that is there, is it the right amount of money? Is it going to the intended recipients with the intended basket of food as part of that?”
