President Donald Trump’s Darwinian food stamp modifications – abetted last year by supine Republican congresspeople whose constituents are now suffering – is working out just as critics had predicted. Low-income and disabled residents in Virginia and elsewhere are forced to choose between food, shelter, and healthcare.
‘Trying to do the best we can’: Va. lawmakers, beneficiaries brace for SNAP changes
Roughly 867,000 Virginians received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in March 2025. The figure a year later is down to almost 754,000, a spokesman with the Virginia Department of Social Services said Friday. That’s a nearly 14% drop.
Some $187 billion will be cut from the federal food stamps program over a decade because of the changes. It’s as if Inspector Javert is running the program.
Don’t just take my word for the calamity these heartless cuts have caused – all to mostly benefit wealthy Americans. Listen to the people on the front lines in the commonwealth who assist the poor, unemployed and others who are overwhelmed by decreasing federal aid, a stagnant economy and higher gas prices because of the poorly planned war against Iran:
Patrice Smallwood, chair of the board of Virginia Organizing, said Trump’s H.R. 1 bill was supposed to take money from scammers and those committing fraud to redirect money to the truly needy. “That’s not what I’m seeing,” she continued. “That was deception.
“The biggest thing really is the propaganda … about how Virginians and people all across the country were going to be helped,” Smallwood said.
Though some decline in enrollment occurred before H.R. 1 passed (I refuse to call it by Trump’s risible slogan), the demand on area food pantries has rocketed in recent years, said Eddie Oliver, executive director of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks. The group is a collaboration among seven regional food banks and hundreds of agency partners around the state.
“We’ve seen a pretty steady rise in food pantry usage since 2023,” Oliver said. Some food banks are seeing all-time record demand now, he added, which was supercharged by the government shutdown late last year.
The federation notes that eight of the 10 localities with the highest rates of food insecurity are rural and concentrated in Southwest Virginia. Those areas typically select Republicans in Congress – and GOP congresspersons almost unanimously supported cuts to SNAP and Medicaid last year.
All five Virginia Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives – Ben Cline, Morgan Griffith, Jennifer Kiggans, John McGuire and Rob Wittman – voted to slash the social safety net. All of them are up for re-election this fall.
Many Virginians who remain eligible for food stamps are exasperated because of stricter application and work requirements, noted Hannah Wyatt, a staff attorney who specializes in food security and public benefits with the Virginia Poverty Law Center.
“Some are kind of just giving up,” Wyatt said.
Able-bodied adults without dependents, for example, already faced a three-month time limit on SNAP participation if they weren’t working at least 80 hours per month. But the legislation increased the age that adults must adhere to those work requirements and time limits, from 54 years old before to 64 now.
So older adults will be forced back into the workforce to remain eligible, even if it’s a chore because of age and general creakiness to get up, get out and get to a job.
This is just one of the regulations in the legislation that tilt away from compassion for average Americans. The law also made eligibility stricter for non-citizens and reduced exemptions for certain requirements.
Other states face the same problems. For example, NBC News recently reported on the upheaval in Arizona, where applicants must fight to prove their eligibility. Some were even quizzed about monetary birthday gifts sent by Zelle, and whether they were one time or recurring.
The article told of recipients who had to turn over even more documents to prove they’re eligible – forcing people off the rolls who should get food aid. Folks needed to visit food pantries more often. The number of Arizonans getting food stamps in March was about half the total from the same time last year; 200,000 children have lost benefits, state data showed.
The claims by toadies for the Trump administration that the new regs are ending “fraud, waste and abuse” have been illusory – especially since those receiving aid are jumping through more hurdles to receive what they deserve.
Plus, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute, previously reported that “cases of intentional fraud by participants or SNAP authorized retailers are relatively rare.”
VDSS has published a webpage with a dedicated list of resources for SNAP participants that covers employment and volunteer opportunities, medical resources and more information.
“The primary impact of this law on the Commonwealth is that now more families are going hungry when nobody should have to go hungry,” the spokesman said.
Contrast the amount of documentation that SNAP recipients must provide to the lack of oversight involving repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Trump put a proverbial thumb on the scale to help a contractor that he knew. (Trump later claimed he didn’t know the firm. But we’ve seen this story before.)
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia firm, received a no-bid contract, bypassing a requirement to seek competing offers – reportedly because a delay would cause “serious injury” to the government. The president wants the repairs done before the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4.
The New York Times has reported that Trump promised the repairs would cost nearly $2 million; the total is now more than $13 million. The company also has an inflated profit margin of 20%, a government analysis found.
Trump said he chose the company because it had worked on swimming pools at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia. He doesn’t even try to disguise his obvious conflict of interest.
It’s too bad that millions of Americans, desperate for food, don’t have such a chummy relationship with the president. They’re just trying to survive.
The callousness is a disgrace. Trump’s cuts are heartless and have endangered lives and livelihoods.
The government’s contempt for the poor is a blight on our nation.
