Dear john,
I wanted to share some thoughts on the Trump administration refusing to fund food assistance. They have always had food assistance for hungry Americans on their target list.
Their “One Big Beautiful Bill” slashes $186 billion next year, but the cuts coming next week are a CHOICE Trump and Republicans are making.
The USDA has a $6 billion contingency fund and had a plan to use the money to fund SNAP in November. But they deleted the plan and then announced that they could not "legally" use the funding.
This is not true. They are cravenly choosing to withhold the money.
Their deleted memo states “...SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown.”
Back in February, when Congress was up against another potential government shutdown, the guidance was clearly to continue funding SNAP.
But now, the administration has made an about-face that will cause Americans real pain.This decision hurts Americans AND our economy.
The USDA estimates that every $1 spent on SNAP benefits generates $1.54 in economic activity. This is especially important during this economic downturn (a result of Trump's bad economic policies). SNAP funding doesn’t just support hungry Americans; every $1 billion invested in SNAP also supports 13,560 additional jobs.
I've seen people on social media say, "But Republicans are trying to continue funding SNAP."
They seem to have conveniently forgotten that Republicans made massive, permanent cuts to SNAP in their "One Big Beautiful Bill” which will go into effect next year - all to give wealthy Americans massive tax breaks!
Thankfully, various states know the money is there and are suing the administration in order to protect Americans against Trump’s terrible decision to withhold the funds
This administration has no problem withholding available SNAP funding while at the same time using your money to fund their warped priorities:
Argentina ($40 billion)
Modifications to Trump's Qatari plane ($400 million)
Kristi Noem's private planes ($170 million)
So, to be clear: the SNAP cuts coming this week impacting 42 million Americans who will have a harder time putting food on the table are a choice made by an administration that couldn’t care less about anything but enriching themselves and their cronies.
