Cutting back Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is cruel

There’s a battle brewing in Congress over how much you can eat.

To be more specific, it’s about how much politicians think you “deserve” to be able to eat if you fall on hard times.

It’s unconscionable at worst, cold-hearted at best. Republicans in the House are currently debating just how far to cut back on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, formerly as Food Stamps, in the upcoming federal budget.

The proposed cuts are part of the effort to attain the goals promised by President Donald Trump in next year’s “big, beautiful budget,” as he puts it. If successful, the effort simply means that more people will go hungry to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy.

Republicans are looking to cut more than $230 billion from the program that helps feed more than 40 million low-income Americans. Nearly 40% of SNAP benefits go to children.

Americans qualify for SNAP benefits if their income is under 130% of the federal poverty line. And despite what critics will tell you, there are work requirements tied to the benefits. Meanwhile, polling has shown that most Americans favor increasing benefits, not cutting them. That might have something to do with the soaring cost of food in this country.

One element of the Republican proposal would shift much of the cost directly onto the states — cutting the federal budget, but essentially kicking the can down the road toward 50 state capitals.

“SNAP helps make sure children, seniors, veterans, and Americans with disabilities have enough food to stay healthy,” said Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat.

“Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are going after these very modest benefits — about $2 per meal — to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” he added. “It’s a special kind of cruel to take food out of the mouths of hungry people to fund yet another tax break for the richest people in the country.”

But here’s the rub: SNAP benefits are used almost as widely in Republican red states as they are in blue states dominated by Democrats. People run the risk of hunger everywhere, including places like North Carolina, which is still struggling to recover from widespread flooding caused by last September’s Hurricane Helene.

“Poverty rates are actually higher outside cities than in them,” chef Jose Andres wrote in the Washington Post last month. “So it should be no surprise to learn that families in rural counties use SNAP more than those in small cities and towns.”

Andres and the nonprofit he founded, World Central Kitchen, are still working in North Carolina.

“Recovering from a disaster takes a community even longer if it was already struggling in the so-called good times,” Andres wrote. “These are anything but good times in rural America, which has been hit by everything from tariffs to extreme weather to bird flu and immigration crackdowns. And on top of these crises, Congress is now adding another — threatening to cut federal food benefits as the Republican leadership plays politics with the budget.”

If there’s cause for hope, it comes from the fact that many in Republican leadership are starting to realize how the proposed cuts could affect their constituents.

Americans are suffering from hunger everywhere. They don’t care if they live in a blue state or a red state. They simply want enough food for themselves and, especially, their children.

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