There may be a change that affects more than 40 million Americans’ wallets through one of the benefit schemes. The SNAP benefit program may have its budget changed because of a Republican plan. This would affect families who are trying to find food in the markets.
Less money for more than 40 million Americans through SNAP
Republicans and President Trump’s administration want to cut spending to extend the TCJA, which would mean that $4.5 trillion more is spent. His budget proposal says that $2 trillion in mandatory spending on things like Medicaid and SNAP must be cut. Cuts are made to several committees: agriculture gets $230 billion, education and workforce gets $330 billion, energy and commerce gets $880 billion, and inspection gets $50 billion.
One important thing to note is that they are not only going after SNAP but also health insurance programs. The Agriculture, Energy, and Commerce Committees would all be affected by the cuts. It’s not clear if they will change how the government gives out nutritional rewards. The measure doesn’t directly cut SNAP, but it might make it possible to make big changes. If Republicans can extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, they will likely have to cut money for SNAP, Medicaid, and other social services in order to pay for the extra $4.5 trillion in spending.
States will have to raise taxes or cut services even more to make up for the loss of federal aid. Michael Ryan, a financial expert on the subject that touches millions of families, says that this will have an effect on rural and economically disadvantaged areas, where these programs are very important for boosting both local economies and people’s health.
These are Trump’s new ideas for changing how SNAP benefits are given out
This week, Kailee Buller, President Trump’s new chief of staff, said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will fix the problems caused by Joe Biden’s bad financial management of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Responding to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) review of Vilsack’s management of the SNAP program, Buller said that officials at the former USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack’s office “put politics over commonsense” and “compromised the integrity” of the program.
She also said that the Trump administration would move right away to fix this egregious mistake and make sure that big security holes like this don’t happen again. Her statement came after the House Republicans released their budget plan, which cuts SNAP benefits by a large amount. Newsweek asked the USDA press team for a reaction via email on Thursday morning. The most current information from the department shows that SNAP is the biggest nutrition assistance program in the United States. In fiscal year 2023, it received about 68 percent, or two-thirds, of all nutrition assistance funds from the USDA.
Families with low or no income get monthly food subsidies that help them buy healthy food by raising their grocery budget. The USDA says that during the fiscal year 2023, 42.1 million Americans got SNAP payments every month on average. Different states have different percentages of people who get the benefits. In 2023, the states with the biggest percentages were Oregon, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Illinois, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
About twenty-four percent of users in 2022 were children younger than five (11.6 percent) and those between the ages of five and seventeen (28%). It is likely that program cuts will happen under the Trump government, which could affect millions of people.
What should people in the US know about the cuts to SNAP benefits?
In a news release issued on Wednesday, Buller said that Vilsack and former Deputy Under Secretary Stacy Dean were putting the “integrity” of the SNAP program at risk. It was also said by Stacy that Secretary Vilsack and Deputy Under-Secretary Stacy Dean rejected the advice of dozens of USDA policy and financial experts, putting politics ahead of common sense. By following a memo from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which leans to the left, Vilsack and Dean hurt public trust even more, put USDA’s finances at risk, and hurt the purity of SNAP.
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