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food aid
USDA Chief Claims 'Real Support' for Moms, But Trump Budget Would Slash Their Food Aid
The White House budget proposal, said one expert, "would slash WIC’s fruit and vegetable benefit, leaving low-income pregnant women and new moms with only $13 per month to buy fruits and vegetables."
May 11, 2026
The head of the US Department of Agriculture said Monday that she is "proud" to be part of a Trump administration initiative purportedly aimed at promoting maternal health and wellbeing.
But President Donald Trump's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year would do the opposite by deeply cutting fruit and vegetable benefits for new and expecting mothers. If enacted, the White House's budget would reduce monthly fruit and vegetable aid from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from $52 to $13 for low-income mothers.
"Your budget proposal would slash WIC's fruit and vegetable benefit, leaving low-income pregnant women and new moms with only $13 per month to buy fruits and vegetables," Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), wrote in response to a social media post by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, who said she is "proud to be part of the Trump administration’s major push delivering REAL support for expecting and new mothers."
Rollins, who has an estimated net worth of roughly $15 million, was among the top administration officials and lawmakers who took part Monday in a White House event touting "what the Trump administration has done to advance maternal health and support motherhood."
Absent from the event was any discussion of the administration's ongoing assault on food aid, which has had a direct impact on mothers across the country. NBC News on Monday reported the story of an Arizona mother of two young children who "should be exempt" from the 2025 Trump-GOP budget law's expansion of work requirements for recipients of federal nutrition assistance.
"She described being caught in a monthslong paperwork back-and-forth with state employees since February, when her benefits failed to arrive," the outlet noted. "Unable to reach anyone by phone, she finally decided to show up in person at the office in Surprise. On the morning she arrived at 7 am, her second visit that week, she had a backpack full of paperwork she was told she needed to provide to verify her income and expenses to have her benefits restored. But after waiting for four hours to speak with someone, she was told she needed more documentation."
"This administration is taking healthy foods away from children and mothers most at risk for nutritional deficiencies."
The budget proposal that Trump released in early April would strip around $1.4 billion in fruit and vegetable benefits from roughly 5.4 million parents and young children, according to a CBPP analysis. The new White House budget marks the second consecutive year the president has pushed for cuts to WIC fruit and vegetable benefits.
Congressional Republicans are attempting to enshrine the White House's proposed WIC cuts into law through the annual appropriations process, calling for $200 million in total reductions in WIC spending—with most of the cuts coming from fruit and vegetable benefits.
Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association, said last month that “these cuts break with the Trump administration’s support for WIC during the 2025 government shutdown and directly contradict the administration’s stated goal to ‘Make America Healthy Again.’"
"WIC is a proven public health investment during the most critical developmental stages: pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood," said Machell. "By slashing the fruit and vegetable benefits and not ensuring sufficient program funding, this administration is taking healthy foods away from children and mothers most at risk for nutritional deficiencies."
"This plan is short-sighted, hypocritical, and, if passed by Congress, will harm American families," Machell added.
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Outrage Grows Over GOP Plan to Take Food Aid From Millions of Women and Children
"There is no doubt that this appropriations bill would only deepen America’s hunger crisis," said the president of one anti-hunger organization.
Apr 23, 2026
House Republicans faced mounting anger on Thursday after proposing hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to a program that provides food aid to millions of vulnerable women and children across the United States.
The cuts were proposed in an appropriations bill to fund the US Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies. The Republican legislation would cut $200 million from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the coming fiscal year at a time when families nationwide are struggling to afford groceries.
The GOP bill would cut by $141 million a WIC benefit that helps provide fruit and vegetables to toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant and postpartum women. Around 5.4 million people would lose fruit and vegetable benefits under the Republican bill, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
"There is no doubt that this appropriations bill would only deepen America’s hunger crisis," Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, said in a statement. "Families are already struggling in the face of rising grocery prices and would be forced to stretch tight budgets even further. In turn, they would be forced to make difficult choices such as paying for food, housing, or other basic needs."
Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr. (D-Ga.), the top Democrat on the House agriculture subcommittee, said Thursday that "it is hard to make America healthy again when this bill takes fruit and vegetables from over 5 million women, infants, and children and eliminates the Healthy Food Financing Initiative."
For 30 years, Congress has fully funded #WIC to ensure all eligible families who apply can receive full benefits. The House agriculture appropriations bill would break this promise: it would underfund WIC & cut benefits for WIC participants in every state. https://t.co/lHjESmgkuN
— Ty Jones Cox (@TyJonesCox) April 22, 2026
The damage from the Republican proposal wouldn't be limited to people in the United States. Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger, noted that "globally, the bill would cut a drastic 25% from Food for Peace at a time when worldwide hunger emergencies are spiking, and the availability of emergency food is in doubt."
"Countless families in the United States and around the world are struggling to get the food they need for themselves and their families. Conflict abroad is spurring emergencies while raising costs for food and agriculture across the globe, and continued economic uncertainty is continuing to put a strain on the limited resources of those most in need of food assistance," said Mitchell. "Hungry people and families cannot afford to shoulder the burden of decreasing federal spending."
The House GOP's proposed cuts would compound the ongoing damage inflicted by the unprecedented $200 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump approved last summer.
CBPP noted in an analysis released Wednesday "that SNAP participation nationwide fell by 2.5 million people (6%) between the law’s July 2025 enactment and December of that year, the latest month of data from the US Department of Agriculture."
"The declines started before HR 1’s enactment, suggesting factors at play in addition to that law," the think tank observed. "But in many states they accelerated after HR 1, and we expect that trend to continue."
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While Spending Billions on Iran War, Trump Quietly Moves to Boot Millions More Off Food Aid
"Americans can't afford their groceries, they can't afford their medicine, they can't afford the cost of living, and yet we're dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems, every day in Iran," said one Senate Democrat.
Mar 10, 2026
The Trump administration is quietly pursuing a regulatory change that would strip federal nutrition assistance from an estimated 6 million low-income Americans—including nearly two million children—as it spends billions on an illegal, open-ended war on Iran that has killed more than a thousand people and plunged the global economy into chaos.
The change sought by the US Department of Agriculture would curb broad-based categorical eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to automatically qualify residents for SNAP if they are already enrolled in other aid programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, thus reducing administrative hurdles and costs.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimated in a blog post published late last month—the day before President Donald Trump announced the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran—that gutting broad-based categorical eligibility would likely strip modest federal food aid from around 6 million people, including nearly 2 million children.
"The people losing access to food assistance from SNAP, school meals, and [the Women, Infants, and Children Program] would mainly be working families, older adults, and people with disabilities," the think tank noted. "In other words, the change would primarily harm groups that federal and state policymakers from across the political spectrum have long sought to help: people who work but are living near poverty; older adults and people with disabilities with low, fixed incomes; and people trying to build modest savings in order to become more economically independent."
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that restricting broad-based categorical eligibility would result in roughly $11 billion in savings over a 10-year period—or just over $1 billion a year.
The Trump administration is currently spending around $1 billion per day in US taxpayer money waging war on Iran—a price tag that would be enough to cover the daily costs of SNAP benefits for the more than 40 million Americans on the program.
Over just the first two days of the military onslaught, the Pentagon "burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions," according to figures reported late Monday by the Washington Post.
"Americans can't afford their groceries, they can't afford their medicine, they can't afford the cost of living, and yet we're dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems, every day in Iran," US Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a CNN appearance on Monday.
During Trump's first White House term, his administration proposed a rule that would have curtailed states' option to use broad-based categorical eligibility for SNAP, but the rule was never finalized and the Biden administration later rescinded it.
The Trump Agriculture Department revived the effort late last year, submitting a rule purportedly aimed at ensuring that "categorical eligibility is extended only to households that have sufficiently demonstrated eligibility."
"The end result," CBPP's Katie Bergh recently warned, "will be more hunger and hardship."
The Trump administration's new push comes months after the president signed into law the largest SNAP cuts in US history—around $187 billion over the next decade.
Trump bragged about the cuts during his State of the Union address last month, declaring that his administration has "lifted 2.4 million Americans" off SNAP—a euphemistic description of kicking people off the critical anti-poverty program.
Last week, Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee advanced a farm bill that would do nothing to mitigate the reverberating impacts of the Trump-GOP SNAP cuts.
"Instead of prioritizing the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans, the committee failed to reverse course and continued down a path that will strip food from the tables of children, veterans, caregivers, older adults, and people experiencing homelessness," said Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center.
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'Disgusting': Republicans Applaud as Trump Brags About Taking Food Aid From Millions
"His Big Ugly Bill ripped food away from hungry moms, kids, and seniors to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," said one House Democrat.
Feb 25, 2026
US President Donald Trump received a standing ovation from Republican lawmakers and administration officials Tuesday night when he bragged during his State of the Union address about taking nutrition assistance from millions, which he euphemistically characterized as lifting people off food stamps.
"In one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans—a record—off of food stamps," Trump said during his nearly two-hour speech.
The Republican reconciliation package that Trump signed into law last summer included $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over a 10-year period, the largest cuts to the program in US history.
Trump: "In one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans -- a record -- off of food stamps" (In other words, Republicans cut food stamps) pic.twitter.com/19EoNEUmPF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
The Republican law includes reductions in federal nutrition funding for states—which administer SNAP—as well as expanded work requirements, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would strip nutrition benefits from "roughly 2.4 million people in an average month" over the next decade.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted in a recent analysis, changes enacted by the Trump-GOP law mean that "for the first time in the 50-year history of the modern SNAP program, the federal government will no longer ensure that the lowest-income people, including children, older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities, in every state have access to the food assistance they need because states that refuse to pay the cost share could see the program end."
Shortly after Trump signed the Republican megabill into law, his administration canceled an annual US Department of Agriculture survey aimed at measuring food insecurity, undercutting efforts to track the impact of the unprecedented SNAP cuts. The USDA's final reports estimated that nearly 48 million people in the US faced food insecurity in 2024—including nearly one in five households with children.
"Trump says he 'lifted' millions off food stamps," Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) wrote in response to the president's State of the Union remarks. "But what he really means is his Big Ugly Bill ripped food away from hungry moms, kids, and seniors to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The lies are blatant and disgusting."
Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) denounced her Republican colleagues for their celebratory response to Trump's boast.
"They're applauding ripping food out of people’s mouths to fund their tax cuts for billionaires," McBride wrote on social media.
USDA data released ahead of Trump's speech shows that around 696,000 fewer people received SNAP benefits in November 2025 compared to the previous month.
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst on the food assistance team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that "people haven’t been dropping off SNAP because they no longer need help."
"Economic conditions haven’t improved and groceries haven’t gotten more affordable," Bergh added. "They're losing basic food assistance because of policy choices. Allowing this trend to continue is also a policy choice."
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How States and Cities Can Take Care of Those Left Behind by the GOP’s Big Ugly Bill
With Trump and Congress turning their backs on American families, states have to rise to the moment.
Aug 18, 2025
The new tax law US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed this summer drastically reduces taxes on the wealthiest, slashes essential spending, and adds over $4 trillion to the deficit over a decade.
The law weakens healthcare and food assistance more than any legislation in history. Combined with tax cuts that give a whopping $1 trillion to the richest 1%, no law has ever done so much to enrich the wealthy while hurting those of modest income.
What does it mean for your state and community? For starters, states will lose billions in federal funding for healthcare, food, and other necessities.
Federal funds provided more than 1 of every 3 dollars that states spent last year—and much more in places like Mississippi, Indiana, and South Dakota. In Louisiana, federal aid delivers fully half of state spending. But we’re likely to see layoffs of federal employees in every state—and potentially of state and local employees whose paychecks rely on federal dollars, too.
All in all, this law will leave our communities sicker, less educated, and less safe.
For families, it means less access to the basics.
Hospitals and nonprofits (like food banks) depend on federal funding and will reduce staff at best and shutter at worst. More than 300 rural hospitals face likely elimination. And because of Trump’s healthcare cuts, more than 50,000 Americans will die early every single year.
In addition to these cuts, Trump has also illegally withheld congressionally authorized funding for healthcare, Head Start, child care, disease control, disability services, and more, causing crises at organizations nationwide.
Funding is also getting cut for community colleges, four-year universities, financial aid, loans, and first-generation students. This will block access to degrees for working class kids coast to coast.
Federal emergency funding, long the bedrock of state response to floods, hurricanes, and other disasters, is also on the chopping block—meaning more devastation, less recovery, and billions in costs shifted to states. Transportation projects will stall too, harming commuters and construction jobs.
All in all, this law will leave our communities sicker, less educated, and less safe.
Only the federal government can raise sufficient funds from those most able to pay and distribute them to poorer states like Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia, who have less capacity to raise dollars locally.
But policymakers can fill some of the gap with improved state and local taxation. With Trump and Congress turning their backs on American families, states have to rise to the moment.
States have many options.
They can raise more by bolstering income taxes on the wealthiest—policies that have won recently in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Minnesota. They can also tax income from wealth by improving capital gains income taxation. Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, and New Mexico have passed such reforms recently.
And they can stop corporations from hiding profits in other states, as most states now do, or in other countries, something innovators are increasingly proposing.
Localities have options too: enacting mansion taxes, as cities in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and New York have done, and passing local income taxes as thousands of communities in Ohio, Indiana, and 13 other states do. At the very least, local policymakers could rein in costly corporate tax breaks that shortchange schools.
Tax dollars pay for essentials that make America healthy, educated, and safe. If Trump and his allies slash those fundamentals to enrich the richest, we must insist that states and cities get creative in taking care of the rest of us.
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Israeli Troops Gun Down 30+ Palestinians in Yet Another Food Aid Massacre
One witness said Israeli forces opened fire indiscriminately at Palestinians seeking food aid near a hub operated by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
Jul 19, 2025
Israeli forces on Saturday opened fire on Palestinians seeking food aid in the besieged Gaza Strip, killing more than 30 people as the manufactured hunger emergency in the enclave intensifies.
The Associated Press reported that the massacre "occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation," which the United Nations and aid organizations have described as death traps.
GHF, a private entity backed by the U.S. and Israel, attempted to distance itself from Saturday's killings, saying in a statement that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) shooting took place "hours before our sites opened."
But CNN noted that Gazans have said they "have to travel to distribution points several hours before they open to have a chance of receiving aid."
One witness, Mahmoud Mokeimar, said he was traveling with a large number of people toward the GHF aid hub in Khan Younis early Saturday morning when Israeli forces "opened fire at us indiscriminately."
The entire population of the Gaza Strip is in the grip of an increasingly devastating hunger crisis under Israel's blockade, pushing the enclave's desperate residents to travel to the GHF aid sites in the hope of obtaining food—even if it means risking their lives.
"Bread is what drives me to risk death. There's no alternative," said one Palestinian man who was recently shot in the leg by Israeli forces. "Has the world failed to provide a safe channel for aid delivery?"
The U.N. Human Rights Office estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 870 Palestinians seeking food aid since late May.
The World Food Program said Friday that nearly a third of Gazans are "not eating for days at a time" and "thousands of people are on the verge of catastrophic hunger."
"WFP continues to call for an immediate and sustained cease-fire, and safe, unhindered access to reach all those in need," the organization added.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) echoed that call on Saturday, writing on social media that it "has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses—including this one in Al Arish, Egypt–awaiting entry."
"The supplies are available," UNRWA said. "The systems are in place. Open the gates, lift the siege, allow UNRWA to do its work and help people in need, among them 1 million children."
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5 Facts That Show the Enormity of US Inequality
Well-off Americans have quietly conspired for over 40 years to transfer the riches to themselves, leading to a state of inequality that leaves the entire bottom half of our country with only about 2.5% of total national wealth.
Jul 12, 2025
The Trump administration wants us to believe that lower-income Americans, especially Medicaid recipients, are the biggest drain on the country's wealth. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Well-positioned Americans have quietly conspired for over 40 years to transfer the riches to themselves, leading to a state of inequality that leaves the entire bottom half of our country with only about 2.5% of total national wealth.
Whatever wealth exists among America's poor should not be taken away because of some ignorant prejudice of the rich. Following are some of the insidious effects of greed and blame-passing.
1. The Richest 1% Have Transferred a Third of America's Wealth From the Bottom 90% to Themselves
A Time report, referring to a Rand study, estimated that "the cumulative tab for our four-decade-long experiment in radical inequality... crossed the $50 trillion mark by early 2020."
To put $50 trillion in perspective, total U.S. wealth at the end of 2023 was about $150 trillion.
Elon Musk is leading the prospective trillionaires with over $400 billion at the end of June, 2025.
Yet with all this wealth rising to the top, American billionaires, according to economist Gabriel Zucman, have an effective tax rate of 8%.
2. Taxes Owed on Decades of Stock Market Gains Will Be Wiped Out When the Rich Kids Inherit the Wealth
In a blatant example of a system exploited by the wealthy, the tax code includes a so-called stepped-up provision which allows the super-rich to leave much of their multi-trillion-dollar stock market fortunes to their children with all the accumulated gains magically erased, and thus, in many instances, without a single dollar in taxes coming due.
It is estimated that by the middle of this century anywhere from $84 to $124 trillion in assets will be transferred to heirs, much of which will qualify for the tax-free stepped-up provision. So much for our meritocracy.
3. The Richest 1% Have Enough Money to Buy Almost ALL the Houses in America
A Redfin report explains: "The combined value of nearly 100 million U.S. homes reached $49.7 trillion at the end of 2024, while the combined net worth of America's wealthiest 1% has grown to a record $49.2 trillion."
4. The World's Richest 1% (40% of Whom are Americans) Emit as Much Pollution as Two-Thirds of Humanity
Oxfam summarizes: "The richest 1% of the world's population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 than the 5 billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity."
5. The Poor Are Being Systematically Diminished
After 40 years of growing inequality, the "Big Beautiful Bill" is about to make it even worse.
Almost 12 million Americans are expected to lose healthcare coverage with the trillion-dollar Medicaid cuts. Major health research cuts are planned for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most damaging could be the impact on the kids. Even though nearly 1 out of 5 households with children in America experiences food insecurity, the administration is cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by a quarter-trillion dollars over the next decade. A Propublica report states: "The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don't die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse.."
And at a time when young students are struggling to deal with the pressures of a social networking society, the administration is cutting over a $1 billion in youth mental health funding.
The poor seem to have nowhere to turn. A Vera report explains: "Almost every state has at least one law that bans activities people experiencing homelessness engage in simply to survive. Laws that prohibit panhandling, loitering, living in vehicles, or sharing food and water in public spaces all discriminate against people experiencing homelessness, as authorities eject them from public spaces, confiscate and destroy their property, and transport them to mass shelters and jails."
The Republican Response
U.S. Vice President JD Vance shrugged off the "minutiae of the Medicaid policy." President Donald Trump agreed that Republicans were "not doing any cutting of anything meaningful."
But just in case the cuts turn out to be meaningful for Americans, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assures us that they'll "get over it."
In Trump's world of wealth and status, tolerance for poor Americans has turned into an ugly sense of disdain.
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What to the Arab-American and the Child of Immigrants Is the Fourth of July?
For me, it is hard to separate the explosions lighting our night sky from over 600 days of explosions, also funded by our tax dollars, setting alight universities, hospitals, tents, and children in Gaza.
Jul 04, 2025
As we walked toward the park for the fireworks display, my 5-year-old held my hand excitedly. “I want to see the fireworks up close,” she said. We’ve only watched neighborhood displays through our window, in previous years. She helped me pull her younger sister in the wagon behind us.
When the first fireworks lit up the sky, both children covered their ears. “It’s too loud!” They cried, looking up at the sky in awe. “How do they shoot them up there? I want to see,” said my older child, quickening her pace. But my heart paused.
For me, it is hard to separate the explosions lighting our night sky from over 600 days of explosions, also funded by our tax dollars, setting alight universities, hospitals, tents, and children in Gaza. The daily atrocities, which include illegally blocking food and humanitarian aid and then “deliberately” shooting at unarmed Palestinian civilians waiting for aid at U.S.-funded distribution sites, have all but faded from our newspapers.
No child should have to look up at the sky in fear that the bombs bursting in air will flatten their home, school, or hospital, or separate them from their loved ones.
I immediately thought of a Palestinian-American colleague in NYC, who had recently texted, “My aunt just came for a visit from the West Bank, Palestine. When she heard fireworks in the neighborhood, she froze and asked, ‘Has the war come here?’”
On some level it has. The insistence of U.S. elected officials on continuing to send our tax dollars to Israel for its annihilation of Gaza, in spite of majority public opposition, played a decisive role in the 2024 election. The disillusionment of the American electorate, and the growing gap between policy and public opinion, has only grown. Now 3 out of 4 Americans believe that our democracy is under serious threat.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass, an American abolitionist and statesman, was invited to deliver a speech at a meeting of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in New York, entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” He reflected on the young republic, extolled its fight for political freedom, and then asked a vital question: “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” Douglass urged the listener to ponder on the inequities of our 76-year-old nation, founded on universal declarations of freedom, whose economy relied on enslaving Black people, and denying them the same freedom we proudly proclaim. His question today bears repeating.
Today, as we celebrate 249 years of American democracy, the ironies of the moment could scarcely be more stark. Our president, himself the child of one immigrant and married to another, aims to end birthright citizenship. The 1800s feel closer than ever as the Executive Branch pushes our Constitution to its limits, challenging the 14th Amendment which granted birthright citizenship to the children of slaves. That same president has also brazenly endorsed evicting or eliminating 2 million Palestinians from their homeland to turn Gaza into a beach resort, although 4 out of 5 Americans oppose this flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
In the past month, plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have detained U.S. citizens on their way to work, and detonated explosives to blow off the front door during a raid of a Los Angeles home, traumatizing a woman and her two children, 1- and 6-years-old, who were sleeping inside. In spite of the misgivings of a majority of Americans, Congress has forced through massive cuts to healthcare and nutrition benefits, which may push an estimated 17 million people off health insurance, threaten the closure of 300 rural hospitals, and increase food insecurity for over 40 million Americans. And thus, it should be little surprise that our same president has contracted with Palantir to create a searchable, “mega-database” of tax returns and other private data of U.S. citizens, which would enable surveillance and further erosion of our civil liberties. Our ability to tolerate the erosion of freedoms and security for some portends the erosion of freedom for all.
As we gather with our neighbors, friends, and family this weekend, let us reflect more deeply on our duty to protect the Declaration that we celebrate. For too many citizens of this republic, firework displays echo the devastating realities our loved ones face. No child should have to look up at the sky in fear that the bombs bursting in air will flatten their home, school, or hospital, or separate them from their loved ones. At a bare minimum we should have the power to ensure that our tax dollars do not fund such atrocities.
As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, we must urgently acknowledge that the American Revolution is not over. Let us not whitewash our history but understand that we shape it. We all have a role to play in defending its core principles, of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all. At this moment, the most rightful way to honor our democracy is to follow Douglass’ sage exhortation to “stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
This piece has been updated with edits from the author.
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'Catastrophic': GOP Pushes Largest-Ever Cuts to Food Aid to Fund Tax Breaks for the Rich
"House Republicans' proposals would gut this program, and take food away from the hungry to give tax breaks to the ultrawealthy. These budget proposals make it clear where their priorities lie."
May 13, 2025
House Republicans are set to hold a committee hearing Tuesday on legislation that would inflict the largest-ever cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—a highly effective anti-poverty program that tens of millions of people across the U.S. rely on to afford groceries—to help offset the cost of further slashing taxes for the rich.
The proposal, which is part of the GOP's sprawling reconciliation package, would shift some SNAP costs onto states and expand the program's work requirements, adding procedural hurdles that advocates say will make it harder for families in need to obtain benefits.
One recent analysis estimated that imposing harsher work requirements on SNAP enrollees would cause millions to lose benefits at a time of elevated food costs and rising hunger.
The new bill would also freeze updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which is used to determine SNAP benefit amounts. Freezing the plan would effectively cut SNAP benefits for all recipients, analysts said.
"Bottom line: This bill would worsen hunger and hardship," said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "If enacted, it would be the largest cut to SNAP in history—taking food from struggling families to give tax cuts to the wealthy. Our leaders can and must do better."
The House Ag bill released tonight would take away or cut #SNAP food benefits for millions of low-income people struggling to afford groceries—families w/ children, seniors, ppl w/ disabilities, veterans & workers in low-wage jobs.
— Ty Jones Cox (@tyjonescox.bsky.social) May 12, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Overall, the Republican legislation aims to slash federal SNAP spending by $290 billion over the next decade. Lawmakers on the House Agriculture Committee are set to mark up the bill at a hearing on Tuesday at 7:30 pm ET.
"SNAP is an efficient anti-hunger program," said Kyle Ross, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. "Yet, House Republicans' proposals would gut this program, and take food away from the hungry to give tax breaks to the ultrawealthy. These budget proposals make it clear where their priorities lie."
Republicans unveiled their plan for deep SNAP cuts shortly after releasing draft legislation that confirmed their push for another round of tax giveaways for the richest Americans.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said Monday that "Republicans are fast-tracking catastrophic cuts to food assistance, taking food away from seniors living on fixed incomes and parents who are struggling to afford groceries for their children."
"This smash-and-grab job busts up the farm bill coalition and abandons the traditionally bipartisan legislation that American agriculture relies on to remain competitive and that family farmers need to get through these tough economic times," said Craig. "We should make food assistance work better for those it was designed to protect—like children and moms—not cut it so Republicans can fund more tax breaks for those at the very top."
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Trump and GOP Wage War on Children's Food Aid to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich
The Republican Party's proposed cuts to nutrition assistance for children, said one analyst, "would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses."
Mar 13, 2025
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are waging a multi-front war on nutrition benefits for children, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture moving this week to end programs that provided over $1 billion in funding for schools and charity organizations to buy food from local farmers as GOP lawmakers simultaneously take aim at school meal programs as part of an effort to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
Schools and farmers are "bracing for impact," as The Washington Post put it, after the USDA axed the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program as part of a purported effort to "return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives."
The Local Food for Schools Program, according to the USDA, "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The decision to kill the programs could be disastrous for schools, childcare facilities, and other organizations that were expecting federal funding this year. Politico observed that "roughly $660 million that schools and childcare facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms" has been terminated by the Trump administration.
"Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer 'priorities,'" Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement, noting that her state was set to receive $12.2 million "to provide local healthy food to childcare programs and schools, and to create new procurement relationships with local farmers and small businesses."
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty."
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said that "the Trump administration is proving to be bad for farmers, bad for children, and bad for people in need."
Food insecurity rose for the second consecutive year in 2024, and roughly 14 million children in the U.S. are food insecure, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty," said Brown. "These two programs were a win-win for farmers and communities, and it is incredibly short-sighted to abruptly end them."
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid that "could make it harder for schools to operate meal programs and for families to obtain free or reduced-price school meals, Summer EBT, or benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)."
That's according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which noted that "school meal programs and Summer EBT use SNAP and Medicaid data to automatically enroll children."
"If low-income families with children lose their SNAP and/or Medicaid benefits, they would have to complete a school meal application instead of being automatically enrolled," CBPP warned. "In addition to diminished access to meals during the school year, families who are unable to successfully navigate the application process would no longer be automatically enrolled in Summer EBT. Families with children who lose SNAP and/or Medicaid would also lose their adjunctive income eligibility for WIC."
Zoë Neuberger, a senior fellow at CBPP, said that "as families struggle to keep up with the rising cost of food, Republicans in Congress are looking at making it harder for millions of children in families with low incomes to get free meals at school."
"Worse yet, the proposed cuts would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses," said Neuberger. "Congress should instead focus on removing red tape for schools and families so parents can afford groceries and children can get the meals they need for healthy development."
The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national nonprofit whose members help provide meals to schools across the U.S., is sounding the alarm about three specific proposals that Republicans are weighing as they craft their sprawling reconciliation package:
- Restricting the Community Eligibility Provision;
- Requiring income verification with every free and reduced-price school meal application; and
- Ending Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility
"These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs," SNA president Shannon Gleave warned in a statement earlier this week. "Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies."
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