Congress is using a budget process known as reconciliation to avoid a Senate filibuster. Reconciliation can be used to pass certain tax and spending legislation, and through this process only a simple majority is needed in the Senate.
Right now, the House is getting ready to vote on these proposals to cut basic needs programs to give tax cuts to billionaires and large corporations. One of the biggest cuts being considered is in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps over 150,000 Nebraskans put food on the table.
The proposed cuts are historically devastating. These changes would cut nearly $300 billion, or one third of the SNAP nationwide budget, which are intentionally designed to force people off the program. In its 50 year history, no cuts ever enacted have come close to this proposal and if they are approved, the structure and reach of the program will change forever.
Below are some of the provisions of the reconciliation bill that will hurt SNAP and the people who rely on it:
| Cut proposed | What it would do | Impact on Nebraska |
| State SNAP administrative cost requirement | Starting immediately after cuts are passed, states would be responsible for 75% of administrative costs (compared to 50% now). | For FY23, Nebraska paid $24.2M to administer SNAP with a 50%. Under the new law we would pay $37.3 or an additional $13M. |
| State SNAP benefit cost requirement | Starting FY2028, all states would be required to pay 5% of SNAP benefits. If a state has a payment error rate of between 6 and 8% the state cost requirement increases to 15%. Between 8 and 10% it increases to 20%. If the error rate is 10% or higher, the state share is 25%. | Currently, the federal government pays for all benefit costs. In FY24, that was $332M. With Nebraska’s current 7.03% error rate, we would be required to pay 15% of those costs or an additional $49.8M. |
| Cuts SNAP By Preventing Future Updates to Benefit Amount | USDA can currently update the SNAP benefit amount based on a reevaluation of the food market every 5 years. This is done based on scientific nutrition standards, modern food prep needs, and food costs. This bill would require any updates to be cost-neutral, or approved by Congress, meaning they will not likely happen. | Freezing cuts SNAP benefit amounts cuts SNAP for every Nebraska SNAP household in the future (currently, 1 in 11 households – about 75,000 total – are on SNAP). |
| Vastly Expands Failed Work Requirements & Limit Work Requirement Options | Expands existing harsh and ineffective 3-month time limit to include: – parents or grandparents of children 7 or older, unless caring for the child while both married to and living with an adult meeting the work rules. – older adults until they turn 65. Severely restricts the options states have to waive the time limit in areas with elevated rates of unemployment. DHHS has an option called “discretionary months” it can use to selectively exempt individuals from the time limit for a single month at a time. The proposal reduces this bucket from a number that equals 8 percent of the individuals required to meet the time limit rules to 1 percent. | 13,000 SNAP participants would be newly subjected to additional work requirements leading to a possible 28,000 people (including those in an affected person’s household) losing food assistance. The great recession, the pandemic, and other economic downturns have required the state to waive work requirements in areas without jobs to support them. This will take away our ability to do that. Nebraska’s ability to use discretionary months would be even more important without area waivers. Limiting their number reduces options. |
| End SNAP-Ed | Eliminate the Nutrition education and obesity prevention grant program | Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services administers a SNAP Nutrition Education program, connecting SNAP families to nutrition resources and services. The program, implemented by Nebraska Extension, would be eliminated. |
These deep and cruel cuts aren’t the only ones. The budget reconciliation package includes devastating cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the child tax credit – all in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and fund sweeping deportations of everyday working people that will separate families and longtime community members.
We hope you’ll join us in fighting against the federal budget reconciliation bill by calling and emailing our members of Congress to say NO!
