WASHINGTON — Republicans might ask states to share the cost of food benefits to help pay for tax cuts at the heart of President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, a move that would likely shrink the program and leave some households with less money for food.
Potential cuts to Medicaid have received the most attention in recent weeks, but Republican lawmakers are also considering a significant change to the basic structure of the program that helps more than 20 million households buy food each month.
The federal government fully pays for the $100 billion annual cost of benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with states certifying eligibility and covering about half of the administrative costs.
Under the proposal Republicans are considering, in coming years, states would have to pick up a share of the cost of benefits — potentially 10% to 15% at first – or else shrink enrollment to avoid having to pick up the tab.
House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), whose panel oversees SNAP, insisted there would be “no cuts to benefits” but told HuffPost the idea of shunting costs to states is under serious discussion. He acknowledged it could create problems for states.
“That’s pretty difficult to do because most states have balanced budget amendments,” Thompson said.
For years, Thompson has resisted efforts by members of his party to tighten SNAP eligibility or cut benefits, but other Republicans are eagerly seeking ways to offset some of the $5 trillion in tax cuts they’re hoping to approve this year as part of what Trump calls a “big, beautiful bill.”
The SNAP proposal fits with a broader effort by Republicans to champion reductions in federal spending while simultaneously insisting that nobody will experience a direct cut in federal benefits. Republicans have insisted, for instance, that cuts to Medicaid would target only “fraud, waste and abuse,” even if unemployed adults without children wind up losing benefits as a result.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said the SNAP cost-sharing proposal amounted to legislative sleight of hand.
“This proposal would not generate any cost savings – it would merely pass the buck from the federal government to the states and take food away from innocent people in the process,” Craig said in a release this month.
It’s not clear if moderate Republicans will go along with pushing SNAP costs onto states. A significant number of moderates have said they would not vote for similar proposals to reduce the federal share of Medicaid spending.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in an analysis of a version of the SNAP cost-sharing idea that states would probably rather find ways to avoid absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars in new SNAP costs.
“Because states likely wouldn’t be able to fully fill in the dramatic hole in federal SNAP funding this proposal would create, they would need to take away some or all of people’s food assistance, leaving many low-income households unable to afford groceries,” senior policy analyst Katie Bergh said.
Shifting SNAP costs to states is a somewhat unusual idea, but it’s not totally new. In a symbolic budget document in 2017, the first Trump administration proposed a state match alongside greater flexibility for states to reduce benefits.
“The Budget assumes the match would be phased in gradually, beginning with a national average of 10 percent in 2020 and increasing to an average rate of 25 percent by 2023,” the budget outline said. “To help States manage their costs, new flexibility regarding benefit levels would be provided.”
The cost of SNAP benefits has risen in recent years thanks in large part to a significant upward adjustment in the value of benefits during the Biden administration. In addition to the cost-sharing proposal, Republicans are considering new curbs on administrative flexibility to increase benefits like Biden did, as well as stricter work requirements for able-bodied adults without young children.
Separately, the Trump administration has been asking states to disallow SNAP recipients from using benefits for junk food and soda.
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