“The Republicans’ budget will make America hungrier, poorer and sicker. Parents struggling to afford groceries for their families and seniors living on fixed incomes will have their food taken away if this bill becomes law,” said Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02). “At a time when grocery prices are going up and retirement accounts are going down, we must protect the basic needs programs that help people afford food and health care. As a mother and someone who needed food assistance at periods in my own childhood, I condemn this attempt to snatch food off our children’s plates to fund tax breaks for large corporations. I call on my Senate colleagues to stop this attack on working Americans that takes food away from families and threatens a full, five-year bipartisan farm bill.” 

“Making the deepest cuts to food assistance in history just to fund tax breaks for the wealthy isn’t just bad policy—it’s shameful. In Northeast Ohio, one in five households rely on SNAP. I grew up in one of them, so this isn’t abstract—it’s personal,” said Vice Ranking Member Shontel Brown (OH-11). “This bill punishes people for being poor and makes it even harder for them to afford groceries. Combined with Trump’s tariffs, which are already driving up food prices, it’s a one-two punch to working families. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility — it’s just a cruel transfer of wealth from those who have the least to those who already have the most. The Senate should reject this bill and return to the bipartisan farm bill process that has served our country for decades.”

“Depriving hungry children and struggling families to further line the pockets of billionaires is a moral abdication,” said Congresswoman Jahana Hayes (CT-05), ranking member of the Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee. “When you enter a classroom on a Monday morning and see a child with their head down because they have not had a decent meal since you saw them last, or you find yourself packing extra in your own lunch because you expect a student to ask — it changes you. I will not vote for a bill that takes food from hungry Americans and I remain committed to fighting against any legislation that increases food insecurity.”

The partisan budget bill decimates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in a series of devastating cuts. The independent Congressional Budget Office estimates that at least 3 million Americans will lose access to food assistance as a result. Cutting food assistance will also have a negative material impact on the economy by reducing the money spent on food. 

Slashing SNAP by $300 billion will cost America’s farmers around $30 billion in lost income, threaten more than 27,000 retailers nationwide and imperil nearly 400,000 jobs and $20 billion in direct wages throughout the food supply chain.