By SNAP Works for Hoosiers

Feeding Indiana’s Hungry

Indiana Institute for Working Families

 

Despite campaign promises to protect working families in a tough economy, President Trump’s budget plan goes after food assistance that helps low-income workers feed their families and would abandon the American commitment to ensure no child goes hungry.

The plan would make deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, which millions of struggling families and workers use to afford food when hard times hit.

A significant portion of the cuts come from shifting approximately $267 million dollars each year in SNAP costs onto our state government, which we cannot afford to take on without cutting SNAP benefits (which the budget would allow states to do in a radical departure from SNAP’s basic, proven design); cutting other areas of state funding; and/or raising taxes.

Since its bipartisan origin, SNAP has operated as a national program with benefits paid by the federal government. SNAP is one of our most powerful and costeffective tools to strengthen the economy and improve public health. SNAP not only reduces poverty and hunger, but also improves opportunity for children in Indiana and across the country.

Before we made a national commitment to end hunger, some areas of the country had serious problems with hunger, including children suffering from malnutrition.

Today, SNAP promises better longterm health, education, and employment outcomes for children who receive the healthy foods they need through participation in SNAP.

And contrary to the Administration’s argument that their cuts will help people work, taking away food assistance doesn’t make people work harder, especially when SNAP participants who can work already do so in large numbers; rather, it just makes them hungrier and less healthy. If the Administration truly wanted to help SNAP participants and others find good, sustainable jobs, it wouldn’t be cutting job training grants by 40 percent in the same budget proposal that cuts SNAP.

Unfortunately, news reports indicate that the House of Representatives is considering similar cuts to SNAP in its budget resolution, which is expected to be considered this month. Instead of making short-sighted cuts, Congress should ensure that our neighbors receive support when they hit hard times. Children, seniors, the unemployed, and people with disabilities in our state will pay the price if these drastic cuts are approved.

Ultimately, President Trump’s proposal would cut deep into SNAP and leave 742,000 Hoosiers at risk of food insecurity and poverty. With the House of Representatives considering similar cuts to SNAP in its budget resolution, our Members of Congress, and soon our U.S. Senators, have the opportunity to take a stand for Indiana by protecting the millions of families who participate in SNAP.

Any member of Indiana’s Congressional delegation who cares about protecting struggling families and the health and success of America’s children – and our local economy – should reject these misguided attacks on SNAP in the President’s Budget and subsequent congressional budget resolutions.