MAGAs in Congress, at the behest of Donald Trump, cut $187 billion from the SNAP program in their Big Ugly Bill, conveniently as the Trump tariffs are forcing mass layoffs, and the immigration roundups are pushing food prices higher.
Dummkopfs.
The impact in Virginia, according to an analysis from Voices for Virginia’s Children, is that nearly half a million Virginia families, including veterans and families with teenagers, are now at risk of losing at least some of their SNAP benefits.
“The Big Ugly Bill passed at a time when a majority of Virginians are focused on the high and rising cost of living, made worse by the president’s tariff proposals,” Fourth District Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan said at a press event at the State Capitol in Richmond on Monday.
“More and more Americans worry about how they’re going to afford to put food on the table, access healthcare, pay utility bills and housing costs as the cost of everything increases,” McClellan said. “I’ve heard it every day since being on August recess, whether I’m here in Richmond, in the Tri-Cities, or in the rural counties between here and the North Carolina border. People want their leaders to find ways to lower their monthly costs, but this administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did the exact opposite.”
ICYMI
- Spanberger pledges to address coming shortfalls that could cripple rural healthcare
- Big Ugly Bill could push Virginia health-insurance costs up 20 percent in 2026
- The Medicaid cuts aren’t an other people problem: They impact us all
In effect, MAGAs in Congress are passing the buck to the next level down, which means, state government.
The next governor and the Virginia General Assembly are going to have to foot the bill to try to keep as much of the safety net intact as possible, at least until we can get the bums currently in charge in DC out.
“Republicans have passed the most substantial cut to SNAP in history because they care more about billionaire tax handouts than they do about hardworking families across this country,” said State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic Party nominee for lieutenant governor, and the current chair of the Senate Education and Health Committee.
“This bill also includes more stringent requirements that are going to make it harder for people, including our veterans, to stay enrolled in SNAP. So, let me be clear: no veteran who has served this country should ever have to worry about going hungry in this country,” Hashmi said.
The impact of the Big Ugly Bill cuts is also going to be borne by small grocers like Derek Houston, CEO of The Market at 25th, a grocery store in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood.
“Cutting SNAP makes it a lot harder for stores like ours to stay afloat. It will make it much harder for us to provide healthy food to our communities,” Houston said.
“Independent grocery stores operate on slim margins. When you have low margins and high fixed costs, you have to have high volume. In any given month, over 20 percent of our sales are paid for with SNAP dollars. Without SNAP, I don’t know if we could still make it,” Houston said.
And then, of course, there are the thousands of kids in low-income families who may lose access to free and reduced school meals.
This is the real part of the story, right?
“SNAP is a critical factor in determining eligibility for free school meals, so if a child loses SNAP benefits, they’re also at risk of losing access to school breakfast and lunch. It’s a double whammy for those families,” said Rachael Deane, CEO of Voices for Virginia’s Children.
“These cuts come at a time when households across Virginia are already struggling with the ever-increasing cost of living, with the skyrocketing cost of raising a child, and the ripple effects of these SNAP cuts will be felt not only in the grocery aisle, but in our educational outcomes, in long-term children’s health outcomes and the long-term well-being of our families. When families fall deeper into hardship, it’s our young people who suffer the real and measurable consequences,” Deane said.
The most frustrating part of all this: the MAGAs act like people getting SNAP benefits are lazy people who don’t work, when 70 percent of the adults who receive benefits do have jobs, just not jobs that pay enough to make it possible to get by without some assistance.
“I love my job, but everything is so expensive right now and it is hard to get by,” said SNAP recipient Asia Broadie of Richmond, a full-time cook in a Richmond restaurant. “My dream is to one day buy a house so that I can pass it on to my children. But right now, I am paying high rent for a three-bedroom apartment, plus several hundred a month in childcare, and it is sometimes just too much to balance that all plus power, sewage and water.”
We’re all fine with corporate welfare, of course – like Elon Musk getting billions in free money every year for his businesses, tax-free.
Like he needs it.
“I have to rely on SNAP to help me feed my kids so that I can make ends meet,” Broadie said. “Taking people’s food away from them is so cruel. My kids are doing well in school because they’re obviously fed. They can get some fresh fruit in the morning before heading out to school. I want my kids to have a nice career one day, and SNAP helps them focus in class, to be able to do that.”
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Chris Graham
