July 1, 2025 – After an all-night session in the Senate, Democrats’ efforts to offer amendments ended with no successes, and Republicans passed their massive tax bill, which includes the most significant cuts in history to the country’s largest hunger program.
An updated version released by the Senate earlier today keeps most of the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) proposed earlier. The bill will limit future increases in SNAP benefits; eliminate the popular SNAP-Ed program that teaches healthy eating habits; and make certain groups of non-citizens, like refugees, ineligible for benefits.
Most significantly, it will subject new groups to the most stringent work requirements, shift administrative costs to states, and shift benefit costs—up to 15 percent starting in 2028—to states, based on metrics that measure errors in payment administration.
Those changes are expected to push millions of Americans out of the program, while other provisions in the bill will likely kick as many as 11.8 million low-income people off of Medicaid and 4.2 million off of Obamacare insurance plans.
“Under this legislation—which cuts nearly $1 trillion from essential health programs like Medicaid and SNAP—millions of hard-working people will lose healthcare coverage and food assistance under the heavy burden of new punitive governmental red tape,” said Richard E. Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in a statement. “By its very design, the bill will make our country sicker, put children at risk of going hungry, and make it harder for families to afford basic necessities—all to further enrich wealthy individuals and corporations.”
At the final hour, Republicans carved out some exemptions within the changes to SNAP in order to get Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to vote for the bill. The bill as previously written would have hit Alaskans the hardest because of the way changes were designed; Now, Alaska will be exempt from, or have more time to implement, some of the changes. On social media, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) pointed to the deal as Republican hypocrisy. She forced a vote to push back on the exemptions on the floor, but it did not succeed.
The bill also includes an estimated $67 billion in new funding for commodity farm subsidy programs. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was expected to offer an amendment to limit payments within those programs—a longtime goal of his—but was talked out of it by Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas), according to Politico.
“Passage of this legislation is critical to delivering the promises made to the American people by President Trump,” Boozman said in a statement after the bill passed. “We make common sense reforms to SNAP to ensure the program operates efficiently, is accountable to the taxpayers, and helps those who truly need it. There is also good news for hardworking farmers, ranchers, and producers who, for too long, were forced to operate under outdated policies.” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins celebrated the vote, calling it “a desperately needed win for our farmers,” by posting an image of her face next to President Trump’s on Instagram.
Klobuchar, however, pointed to the fact that reduced SNAP spending will hurt farmers, as it will deprive them of customers. “These cuts also mean farmers, who are already operating on razor-thin margins, will see billions in lost revenue and rural, independent grocers will be in jeopardy,” she said in a statement.
The bill now heads back to the House, where it’s still unclear whether Republicans, who are divided on many issues and have the narrowest of margins, have the votes to pass it. While Trump has pushed to sign the bill by July 4th, he wavered on that deadline this morning. (Link to this post.)
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