By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) – Lawmakers clashed over the future of the nation’s largest food aid program during U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committee hearings on Tuesday, previewing a partisan fight over the issue in farm bill negotiations.
The conflict over potential cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has flared in the ongoing budget reconciliation process and could serve as a roadblock to passage of a new farm bill this year.
The House Republican budget plan would have the chamber’s Agriculture Committee cut $230 billion as part of government-wide spending cuts to make way for President Donald Trump’s $4.5-trillion tax and border security agenda.
Democrats fear those cuts would come from SNAP, which sends an average benefit of $187 to about 41 million low-income people monthly, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Any cuts to SNAP, also known as food stamps, would come as food prices climb, and as food banks strain under the twin pressures of high demand and cuts from the Trump administration.
SNAP cuts would also hurt farmers due to reduced spending on food, said Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, at Tuesday’s hearing.
“This cut would slash farm revenue by approximately $30 billion, on top of the markets they’re losing because of the dumbest trade war in history,” she said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said Democrats will forcefully oppose any SNAP cuts in the budget plan.
Glenn “GT” Thompson, the chairman of the House committee, has said he aims to avoid benefit cuts, though he and other Republicans spoke in Tuesday’s hearing of the need to strengthen the program’s work requirements.
“We must preserve benefits for those truly in need but also ensure that SNAP guides participants to independence and self-sufficiency,” Thompson said.
Democrats argue that expanding work requirements amounts to a benefit cut because it shrinks enrollment in the program.
The issue also came up in Tuesday’s Senate Agriculture Committee confirmation hearing for two Trump nominees, including Stephen Vaden, his pick for USDA deputy secretary.
Asked about work requirements, Vaden said SNAP benefits are meant to give “a helping hand” to those in acute need but that recipients should work their way out of the program.
The House and Senate Agriculture Committees must each pass their own versions of a farm bill and reconcile them into one bill to be voted on by the full Congress. The 2018 farm bill expired in 2023 and has been twice extended as the committees struggle to find agreement on policies such as SNAP.
The farm bill is a half-billion dollar spending package passed every five years that funds farm, conservation and nutrition programs.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas; Editing by Rod Nickel)
