As April winds down, we’re moving ever closer to the May target date that the Republicans are pushing, for movement on a bill that would see at least $230 billion in cuts to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s core program – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Administration is eyeing cuts to SNAP to offset the cost of their vanity projects – promised tax cuts, increased border security, and their not-so-green energy sector subsidies, not to mention much, much more.

But why target the most vulnerable? Especially a program that is at its core essential – allowing people access to food, a bare necessity of life.

America has a long history of supporting its hungry citizens.

The first such program started at the end of the Great Depression. It was a short-run, stamp-based program started in 1939 with Mabel McFiggin being the first recipient in Rochester, New York, on May 16, 1939. The program ran until 1943 when it was deemed no longer ‘necessary’ as economic and employment conditions improved.

What ultimately evolved to be the current SNAP program was started in 1964 with the implementation of the Food Stamp Act.  

Food security programs have changed and grown over the years; the current SNAP program helps to feed more than 40 million low-income Americans.

It is essential.

Without it, many Americans would lack access to basic food – including almost 14 million children.

Furthermore, if the proposed cuts to the program proceed, families in every state in the country would be affected.

But, no more extensively than California.

Currently, California makes up almost 15% of the SNAP registrants, with over 5.9 million residents receiving benefits.

What kind of impact would the proposed cuts have on current SNAP recipients?

A reduction in daily benefits would be roughly $1.40, bringing down the benefit to only $5.00 per day for food.

$5.00?

Where in America can one eat for just $5.00 per day?

Nowhere.

The USDA’s own ‘Thrifty Food Plan’ March 2025 budget averages out across all adult age/gender groups at $263.55 – far more than $5.00/day.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states, “[the cuts] would make it more difficult for more than 40 million people to afford groceries, 90 percent of whom are in households with children, older adults, or people with disabilities.”

Ultimately, President Trump is paying for his vanity core policies by breaking the one program that supports a basic need of society’s most vulnerable.