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center on budget and policy priorities
Trump and GOP Wage War on Children's Food Aid to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich
The Republican Party's proposed cuts to nutrition assistance for children, said one analyst, "would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses."
Mar 13, 2025
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are waging a multi-front war on nutrition benefits for children, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture moving this week to end programs that provided over $1 billion in funding for schools and charity organizations to buy food from local farmers as GOP lawmakers simultaneously take aim at school meal programs as part of an effort to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
Schools and farmers are "bracing for impact," as The Washington Postput it, after the USDA axed the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program as part of a purported effort to "return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives."
The Local Food for Schools Program, according to the USDA, "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The decision to kill the programs could be disastrous for schools, childcare facilities, and other organizations that were expecting federal funding this year. Politicoobserved that "roughly $660 million that schools and childcare facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms" has been terminated by the Trump administration.
"Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer 'priorities,'" Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement, noting that her state was set to receive $12.2 million "to provide local healthy food to childcare programs and schools, and to create new procurement relationships with local farmers and small businesses."
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty."
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said that "the Trump administration is proving to be bad for farmers, bad for children, and bad for people in need."
Food insecurity rose for the second consecutive year in 2024, and roughly 14 million children in the U.S. are food insecure, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty," said Brown. "These two programs were a win-win for farmers and communities, and it is incredibly short-sighted to abruptly end them."
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid that "could make it harder for schools to operate meal programs and for families to obtain free or reduced-price school meals, Summer EBT, or benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)."
That's according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which noted that "school meal programs and Summer EBT use SNAP and Medicaid data to automatically enroll children."
"If low-income families with children lose their SNAP and/or Medicaid benefits, they would have to complete a school meal application instead of being automatically enrolled," CBPP warned. "In addition to diminished access to meals during the school year, families who are unable to successfully navigate the application process would no longer be automatically enrolled in Summer EBT. Families with children who lose SNAP and/or Medicaid would also lose their adjunctive income eligibility for WIC."
Zoë Neuberger, a senior fellow at CBPP, said that "as families struggle to keep up with the rising cost of food, Republicans in Congress are looking at making it harder for millions of children in families with low incomes to get free meals at school."
"Worse yet, the proposed cuts would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses," said Neuberger. "Congress should instead focus on removing red tape for schools and families so parents can afford groceries and children can get the meals they need for healthy development."
The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national nonprofit whose members help provide meals to schools across the U.S., is sounding the alarm about three specific proposals that Republicans are weighing as they craft their sprawling reconciliation package:
- Restricting the Community Eligibility Provision;
- Requiring income verification with every free and reduced-price school meal application; and
- Ending Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility
"These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs," SNA president Shannon Gleave warned in a statement earlier this week. "Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies."
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Entirely Absent From Trump Speech to Congress: His Push for Catastrophic Medicaid Cuts
"He knows his plan to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid is so deeply unpopular that he would rather sweep it under the rug and not mention it at all."
Mar 05, 2025
President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night was the longest in recent history, giving him ample opportunity to lay out his complete legislative agenda to the American public.
While Trump highlighted his push for "permanent income tax cuts"—which would disproportionately flow to the rich—he did not once mention that he has endorsed a House GOP plan to offset some of the costs of those tax cuts by taking a sledgehammer to Medicaid, which provides health coverage to more than 70 million low-income people in the United States.
In fact, the only mention of Medicaid during the address came not from Trump but from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who yelled at the beginning of the speech that the president "has no mandate to cut Medicaid."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) subsequently ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Green from the House chamber.
"Trump can try to run from his war on American healthcare, but he can't hide from it."
Medicaid cuts are extremely unpopular with U.S. voters, including Trump supporters, according to recent survey data. And Republicans know it: Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who voted for the budget resolution calling for huge cuts to Medicaid, warned Trump in a phone call last week that the GOP "could very easily lose the majority for it."
Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said that could help explain why Trump omitted any mention of House Republicans' proposal for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years—cuts that could strip healthcare from tens of millions of people across the country.
Protect Our Care organized a "Hands Off Medicaid" display outside the White House ahead of the president's address.
"Donald Trump can try to run from his war on American healthcare, but he can't hide from it," Woodhouse said in a statement late Tuesday. "He knows his plan to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid is so deeply unpopular that he would rather sweep it under the rug and not mention it at all."
"While people are struggling to pay their bills, he wants to raise the cost of healthcare and take away coverage that millions of people count on," Woodhouse added. "Trump is breaking the promises he made to the American people just to provide his billionaire friends with tax cuts."
No plan to lower health care costs. No solutions to bring down prescription drug prices. Not a single mention of Medicaid, which covers more than 72M Americans. Trump has no answers for the health care crises facing working families—because they’re the ones making it worse.
— Protect Our Care (@protectourcare.org) March 4, 2025 at 11:02 PM
As Trump celebrated the destructive actions he's taken during the opening weeks of his second White House term and rattled off examples of purportedly wasteful spending he claimed was identified by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quipped that "this list is so long and taking up so much real estate in his speech it's almost like they want to distract from their massive cuts to Medicaid."
"Trump backed the GOP into a big corner with his 'balanced budget' point," Ocasio-Cortez added, referring to the president's expressed desire to "do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget."
"The ONLY way the House GOP could even think about upholding their 'no cuts to Medicaid' swing seat promises and their spending cut mandates is deficit spending and bad math," the New York Democrat wrote. "Now they have to gut Medicaid and hand it to Elon in public."
Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, observed that the recently passed House GOP budget resolution's tax cuts "are so large that even with massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and student loans that budget would INCREASE the deficit."
During his address, Trump claimed that "the next phase" of his economic plan is "for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody."
But an analysis published last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the Medicaid cuts outlined in House Republicans' budget resolution would "squander most of the meager benefits from the [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] extension even for families in the middle fifth of the income distribution."
"Medicaid cuts will substantially reduce incomes for families in the bottom 40% (the bottom two-fifths) of the income distribution," EPI found. "For the bottom fifth, $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade would translate into Medicaid benefit reductions equal to 7.4% of their money income. For the second fifth, these cuts would equal 1.7% of their money income."
In his response to the president's speech Tuesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "in so many words, Trump urged Congress to pass his 'big, beautiful budget.'"
"Do you know what's really in it? This budget would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. Oh, I guess Trump forgot to talk about that," said Sanders. "According to one estimate, it means that up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, would be thrown off the health insurance they have."
"A 90-minute speech tonight," the senator added, "not one word about throwing millions of kids off of the health insurance they have."
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GOP Plows Ahead With Budget That Would Slash Medicaid, Food Benefits for Millions
"In this bill, Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud: Billionaires, big companies, and special interests not only deserve a tax break, but that it should be paid for by everyday Americans."
Feb 25, 2025
Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted late Monday to advance a budget resolution that, if translated into law, would enact painful cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, potentially stripping critical benefits from tens of millions of low-income Americans to help fund trillions of dollars in tax giveaways that would flow primarily to the rich.
The rules panel voted 9-4 along party lines in favor of the budget blueprint, setting the stage for a House floor debate and vote as soon as Tuesday evening.
While some House Republicans have publicly and privately voiced concerns about the scale of the Medicaid cuts proposed in the budget resolution, GOP members of the rules panel on Monday rejected Democratic amendments aimed at preventing cuts to the healthcare program as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other spending.
"Republicans can't have it both ways—they can't claim to stand up for their constituents on SNAP and Medicaid and then reject amendments that would do just that," said Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), who sponsored the proposed changes. "My common-sense amendments would have supported these two key programs that feed hungry children and care for sick Americans. Democrats provided Republicans with several chances to stand with the many instead of the rich. They declined multiple times. I'll continue to pull out every stop as I seek to prevent these cuts from becoming reality."
"Put simply: the bill is a betrayal of the promise that every Republican made just months ago to lower costs."
Monday's committee vote came after a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) analysis found that the SNAP cuts proposed by the House GOP resolution "would result in widespread harm," potentially taking benefits from "more than 9 million low-income people in an average month."
"Deep SNAP cuts would worsen food insecurity, hurt local businesses, and weaken SNAP's ability to boost jobs in every state.SNAP is highly effective at reducing food insecurity and poverty, and research links SNAP participation to better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs," CBPP noted. "Regardless of how lawmakers impose $230 billion or more in cuts to SNAP, these cuts would make it harder for low-income families in every state to afford groceries, worsening food insecurity and hardship. Slashing low-income households' grocery budgets would also reduce revenue for thousands of businesses in every state, with ripple effects throughout the food supply chain."
CBPP previously estimated that House Republicans' plans for Medicaid—specifically their push to impose work requirements—could put 36 million Americans at risk of losing health coverage.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) separately found that if the House GOP's proposal for $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade becomes reality, it would "reduce incomes for the bottom 40% more than extending the [Trump tax cuts] would boost them—and the lowest-income households would fare the worst."
"Strikingly, this is true even as the full $880 billion in Medicaid cuts would only pay for about 20% of the total cost of the [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act]—other cuts and economic damage falling on non-rich families stemming from tax cuts for the rich would still be forthcoming," EPI's Josh Bivens wrote last week. "Meanwhile, the TCJA boosts the incomes of the top 1% significantly, while these households do not rely in any way on Medicaid."
Democrats are expected to unanimously oppose the House Republican budget resolution, leaving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) with extremely narrow margins to pass the measure and move ahead with President Donald Trump's legislative agenda. Trump has endorsed the House resolution, despite claiming to oppose cuts to Medicaid.
House Republicans must also reconcile major differences with their Senate colleagues, who want to advance Trump's agenda in separate, smaller bills rather than one sprawling measure.
"The bill House Republicans are bringing forward tomorrow is a gift to Trump's billionaire donors paid for by hard-working Americans who are already feeling the heat from high prices in Donald Trump's America," Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Monday. "In this bill, Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud: Billionaires, big companies, and special interests not only deserve a tax break, but that it should be paid for by everyday Americans."
"For far too many Americans, this bill will only increase their everyday costs, from their healthcare to their groceries," Carrk added. "Put simply: the bill is a betrayal of the promise that every Republican made just months ago to lower costs."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a senior whip for the House Democratic caucus, wrote in a social media post on Monday that she will not "vote for a budget that gives tax breaks to billionaires and cuts critical programs for working families—including healthcare and education."
"I will be a NO on the Republican budget resolution this week," Jayapal added.
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