Congressional Republicans and the President now own its impact. Unfortunately, it is their constituents who will pay the price for their poor leadership.

House & Senate Republicans have now passed a bill that will raise families' food & health care costs, increase poverty & hunger, take health coverage away from millions of ppl & drive up deficits - all to give costly tax cuts to the wealthy & corporations.

Senate Rs voted to pass a bill that wld raise food & health care costs on families, increase hunger & take health coverage away from millions of ppl while doubling down on tax cuts for the wealthy. House Rs must stand up for their communities & reject it.

The Senate is barreling toward a vote on an unfinished bill that wld take away health coverage & food assistance from millions, raise families’ costs, & make ppl in our nation worse off. There’s still time for senators to say no to this bill. My statement:

This cost-shift is a disaster. And no one should be sanguine that all states will come up with the $. #SNAP could disappear in some states or become nearly impossible to access in others. How in the world is this making us great?.

A nationwide #SNAP program was created during the Nixon Admin to provide critical food assistance to people in every state who need it. SNAP has been incredibly successful at reducing hunger and malnutrition, though far too many ppl still struggle to afford food.

State revenues are strained and will be in worse shape if the economy falters. If states can’t pay this new unfunded mandate, it is kids, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, workers, and parents who will pay the price.

The problem here is the federal government is making deep cuts to federal SNAP funding and then not even assuring that the reduced federal funds get to families if states can’t pay their share.

Its only other option to reduce its costs to $146M wld be to create huge access barriers. And remember, “success” here would mean that 365k households who need assistance to afford food don’t get help – hunger will rise. Evictions too as ppl can’t afford food and rent.

Fed law (rightly) determines sets out eligibility standards for SNAP. The state can make some tweaks to state options to lower benefits for some or restrict eligibility for some, but that won’t be enough.

NC currently provides SNAP to about 730k households. If it can only pay $146M in state funding for SNAP benefits rather than $292M, then it will have to find a way to cut about 365k households off the program. Its options for doing this are limited.

A 10% cost shift to NC would = $292 M in 2028 (est). If NC decides it can only afford $146M, then it has to shrink its caseload so that it can afford the 10% state share on the benefits provided to each household still getting assistance.

2. The match structure means that if a state can only put up half of the funding, the fed funding falls by half too. 3. Benefits are set in federal law based on the cost of food.

To understand why, you need to know 3 things about the SNAP law and the bills. 1. The bills require the state to pay its share of benefits for each fam – federal $ can’t go to a fam unless the state puts in their share.

A state that decides it can pay some but not all of its share of benefits will have to dramatically shrink the # of ppl getting food assistance.

If a state decides it can’t pay any of the food benefit costs, then the fed gov’t would provide no funding & the state would have to terminate the program. It’s a match - fed $s only flow if states put up their share.

Despite a 50-yr history of the fed gov’t fully funding #SNAP benefits, both bills wld require states to pay a % of benefit costs – up to 15% in Senate & up to 25% in House. What ppl don’t understand & Rs proponents haven’t made clear, is what happens to fams if states can’t pay.

Our state by state numbers show how much states could be expected to pay under Senate version of provision.

Misunderstood sleeper issue in OBBB cld mean the end of #SNAP as a national food assistance program available in all states. The cost-shift drafting means a state that can’t pay its share of benefits loses ALL fed $; a state that can only pay ½ has to cut enrollment by about ½.

Add in the President’s tariffs and this agenda would make all but the highest income 20 percent of households *worse off*.