Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) released the following statement after the committee advanced the largest cut to food assistance in American history in their partisan reconciliation bill. 

“While Democrats showed up to this two-day hearing ready to work, Republicans hardly showed up at all. When their seats weren’t empty, they were silent. And the silence was deafening. They know that you can’t cut $300 billion from food assistance for hungry children and seniors without taking their food away.

“The cuts are so egregious that the majority shut down the markup with 44 amendments left to debate, the only committee to use this tactic to cut off democratic debate on critical issues facing families and farmers across the country.

“Instead of making the program work better for seniors and parents of children as young as seven years old, the Republican bill adds paperwork requirements to make accessing food harder. Instead of making SNAP more effective and efficient, the Republican bill cons states into slashing food assistance. And it does all of this to fund tax breaks for wealthy individuals and large corporations at a time where we should be investing in rural America and uplifting the middle class.

“This bill shatters the farm bill coalition, making the path to passing a full, five-year farm bill much harder because there will be no full farm bill to pass – the Republicans tore off bits and pieces of it and left the rest at the wayside.

“Republicans voted to take food from families struggling to afford groceries and give more handouts to those at the very top. That is a damn shame.”

Watch day two of the markup here.