Some in GOP want big cuts to food assistance in Trump's tax bill. Committee chairs say no.

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

May 1, 2025 at 8:07 p.m. EDT


The Republican leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees say they will not advance legislation that cuts food assistance benefits for needy families, a position that threatens to upend the party’s budget goals in what President Donald Trump has called the “big, beautiful bill” on taxes, immigration and defense.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) told The Washington Post that his panel would not force SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps, to overhaul its benefit formulas to claw back billions of dollars in spending. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Arkansas) echoed Thompson’s stance, telling The Post that he is “not in favor of reducing benefits.”

Those declarations could scramble Republicans’ bid to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while slashing trillions of dollars in spending from the federal budget. The GOP is working to pass the legislation through a process called “reconciliation” to allow the Senate to bypass a Democratic filibuster.

But to remain within the rules that govern that process — and to appease hard-line conservatives who demand their party reduce federal spending — lawmakers must achieve a certain amount of budget cuts. Thompson said he doesn’t think his House committee can achieve the $230 billion in savings called for in the budget framework Republicans passed last month. “I think it may have to be less than that,” Thompson said.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/01/snap-cuts-trump-tax-bill/

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No paywall (gift)

SNAP is covered under the Farm Bill, which itself is a 5-year appropriations package. It has been delayed several times since 2013 and the 2023 version was nothing but an extension of the 2018 one (re-upped as part of some C.R.s).

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Ramifications to cutting food assistance

Retailers will feel the pinch quickly. Paradoxically, will they raise prices to makeup the profit shortfall? Lowered food consumption is sure to impact the whole food distribution chain, and producers as well. To not even mention the panic and under-consumption pain of hunger.

My guess is once the food supply chain contracts, there will be less waste from retailers, which will impact food banks, soup kitchens, community food banks. When profits dry up you get less production. We are so screwed. Could write that sentence 10 times a day.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. With all the grant cuts

the food banks are already devastated.

'Going to be a lot of hungry people': Food banks, farmers across US decry federal cuts

Jeanine Santucci
USA TODAY

March 31, 2025, Updated April 1, 2025 3:55 p.m. ET

The abrupt cancellation of government funding for programs to help food banks distribute healthy, local food is being felt across the country, as some already strapped organizations turn to their local communities for help.

In early March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it was cutting more than $1 billion in funding for the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement programs for 2025. The money was designed to pay farmers to provide food to schools and food banks, giving a boost to local producers while giving fresh options to children and communities.

Then, food banks were hit with another blow when they were informed that scheduled deliveries of food through the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program were being halted or cut back.

The cuts come as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency target a long list of government programs and federal jobs for sweeping cuts in recent months. The USDA told USA TODAY that the LFPA cuts were a "return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives."

(snip)

[timms139]

4. As a child in

the 60's i ate lots of the cheese and peanut butter that came from the government and it was great food. Knowing how it helped people I would never support a party or anyone who thinks cutting food is a place to find tax breaks for the rich . I never use the system after a period in the 60's but I have told people over the years how much I would love to have another big metal can full of that same peanut butter .

[bottomofthehill]

3. Farm aid, the great grift

Nothing like paying 25plus billion dollars for farmers not to grow food. And most of the farm money goes to the big agri businesses.
Grifters after the Dons heart.