The LuLac Edition #5, 769, September 15th, 2026
HEY MAGAs..............thanks for NUTHIN!
Diesel at the Pilot on Rt 315 is $7.07. Yikes.
BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL SUPPORTED BY MEUSER AND BRESNEHAN STARVE THE POOR-
SNAP PROGRAM WILL CUT IN NEED POPULATIONS
ABC News reports that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding could face a major shake-up at the end of September unless Congress passes a resolution to delay major changes included in H.R. 1, commonly known as the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill.
Locally the Educational component at the Commission on Economic Opportunity will cease to exist the end of this month. It was supposed to end last year but through the good graces and competence of the Shapiro administration, it received a one year reprieve.
Starting Oct. 1, states will have to pick up 75% of the administrative costs of running the program, with the funding burden of providing benefits to participants set to shift from the federal to state level over the next few years.
State and national food assistance groups are calling on Congress to pass a resolution delaying the implementation of this cost shift, to give states more time to prepare for the bigger bill.
The federal food assistance program faced a funding lapse last fall, and experts are now warning of an uncertain future.
Nationwide, roughly 5 million Americans have lost access to SNAP since the Republican-backed budget bill became law, including more than 1.5 million children, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Much of the decline can be attributed to changes in work requirements and administrative hurdles in applying, coupled with a major cost shift that states will have to bear if they want SNAP to remain fully funded, Dottie Rosenbaum, director of federal SNAP policy at the CBPP, told ABC News.
Under the law, the upper age limit for able-bodied adults without dependents who must meet work requirements was raised from 54 to 64.
Additionally, exemptions were changed for parents and other family members responsible for a dependent, lowering the qualifying age from 18 to 14.
"The declines we're seeing in SNAP participation so far are far deeper and far faster than the Congressional Budget Office predicted at the time the law was enacted, and it's especially alarming that more than one and a half million children have been cut," Rosenbaum said.
"We're hearing increasing reports ... of people struggling to put food on the table, of people facing untenable choices between, you know, paying their rent and buying groceries and other essentials, putting gas in their cars," Rosenbaum added.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of the new work requirements. The administration has publicly supported the idea in the past.
"The American dream is not being on [a] food stamp program. ... The American dream is not being on all these programs. That should be a hand up, not a handout," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview on Fox Business in January.
Alongside the new work requirements, the budget outlined a major shift in costs from the federal government to the states.
Beyond each state's responsibility to pay 75% of SNAP's administrative costs starting in October, states are set to pay a percentage of the benefit costs tied to its error rate in the coming years.
The error rate measures underpayments and overpayments, resulting in mandatory additional payments ranging from 5% to 15% for most states. Predominantly Republican states hit
In predominantly Republican states, the impact is similar. Louisiana has seen the second largest per-capita decline, with 21% of the state's SNAP recipients no longer having access to SNAP according to the CBPP.
Food Bank of North Central Arkansas CEO Jeff Quick said his state is facing a burden too large to bear without major changes. "We will never be able to food bank our way out of food insecurity," Quick said.
"At best, I think we may be unprepared or unable to cover the cost to continue SNAP in Arkansas, and again, if that worst-case scenario were to happen, it could have an estimated $1.2 billion negative economic impact on our state," he added.
Quick also said work requirements have hit harder in Arkansas, adding that a worker earning the state's $11-an-hour minimum wage may still be ineligible for SNAP benefits.
"We don't want to see anyone go hungry, and regardless of who you are or how you vote or how you legislate, we're all on the same path," Quick said. "We got to put great minds together around common causes to find solutions to hunger."
The White House did not comment on whether the administration supports delaying the cost shift.
What's next?
Food bank organizations at the state and national levels are asking Congress to pass a resolution delaying the cost shift and allowing states more time to lower their error rates before taking on the additional costs.
"States need more time," Rosenbaum said. "They need more time to work to lower their error rate and improve their payment accuracy in a way that doesn't limit access to benefits."
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman released a version of the farm bill that would delay the cost shift of SNAP, though it has not advanced through the opposite chamber.
The opposite chamber is the House of Representative. PLEASE NOTE: Both Dan Meuser in the 9th and Rob Bresnehan in the 8th voted for the big, beautiful bill that cut SNAP benefits. (ABC, LuLac)
posted by David Yonki @ 7:41 AM
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