The Iowa Hunger Coalition has issued the following statement in response to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” budget reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives this week, and signed into law today by President Donald Trump.
The Iowa Hunger Coalition condemns this piece of legislation in the strongest possible terms. It is truly a somber day for Iowa and the United States of America. Tens of thousands of Iowans are now directly at risk of losing access to health care and nutrition assistance.
Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both voted in favor of the largest cut to SNAP in the history of the program, as did all four of Iowa’s Representatives in the House: Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson, Zach Nunn, and Randy Feenstra. Let their names be forever tied to the legacy of harm this legislation will bring.
The SNAP cost-shift provisions included in the budget reconciliation bill will leave the state of Iowa on the hook for upwards of $40 million annually, putting not only SNAP at risk of cuts, but other programs and services funded through the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.
Tens of thousands of Iowans are now at risk of losing some or all of their SNAP benefits due to the added administrative burden of work reporting requirements. Even more Iowans will be at risk of losing their health care with work reporting requirements for Medicaid. The research on work requirements is clear: they don’t increase employment or earnings, they just force people off benefit programs. And when people lose access to SNAP and Medicaid, that also puts children at risk of losing access to free school meals.
Thousands of refugees, asylees, and other legal non-citizens we’ve welcomed into Iowa on humanitarian grounds are now set to lose their SNAP benefits—over half of them are children and seniors. Iowa’s federal delegation to Congress has forsaken the legacy of Robert Ray, and turned its back on the amazing Iowans who have come from every corner of the globe to call our state home.
All of Iowa’s members of Congress voted in favor of eliminating the SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed), which funds nutrition education and obesity prevention programs at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services and Iowa State University Extension & Outreach. Voting to defund SNAP-Ed is entirely unjustifiable and antithetical to the President’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Despite the rhetoric espoused by politicians attempting to defend their indefensible votes, there is very little waste, fraud, and abuse in SNAP. Based on the state of Iowa’s own data, SNAP has a less than 0.1% fraud rate. Payment errors are not fraud, include both underpayments and overpayments, and when overpayments are identified people must repay them.
The truth is, there is no defending this bill. SNAP enrollment in Iowa is the lowest it has been in 17 years, while food banks and food pantries continue to face record-breaking numbers of people turning to them for assistance. SNAP is already largely inadequate and inaccessible for too many Iowans, but it’s also the absolute best tool we have in the fight against food insecurity.
Every $1 invested in SNAP generates $1.54 in local economic activity, thanks to SNAP’s economic multiplier effect. When people lose access to SNAP, that means less dollars being spent in local communities across our state, urban and rural alike. Fewer grocery stores and more food deserts may be on the horizon for Iowa.
And despite the historic need at food banks and food pantries, despite the fact that food insecurity is increasing in every single county in the state, despite the fact that this bill will harm our state budget and rural communities, Iowa’s elected officials decided it was necessary to vote for the largest cut to SNAP in the history of the program.
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