Americans brace for welfare cuts in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Elizabeth Butler goes from a supermarket to the next in her hometown of Martinsburg, in Virginia-Western, to make sure that she gets the best price on each article on her grocery list.

With 42 million Americans, she pays for these grocery products with federal food substitutes. This money does not cover the entire bill for his family of three people.

“Our food does not even last the month,” she said. “I go to all these different places just to make sure we have enough food to last us all month.”

But this money could soon run out, when the congress is preparing to vote on what American president Donald Trump invented his “big bill”.

The food subsidy program that MS Butler uses – called the additional nutrition aid program, commonly known as SNAP – is one of the many articles on the Cup block, while Congress tries to reconcile the president’s apparently conflicting requests to reduce taxes and balance the budget.

The Senate must vote on their version of the bill by the end of the week. If he passes, he will then be voted by the room, how it will be sent to Trump to sign. He put pressure on the two Congress Chambers, which the Republican Party controls, to adopt the bill on July 4.

Snap offers low -income households, including older Americans, families with children and disabled people, money each month to buy grocery products. In Virginia-Western, one of the states with the highest poverty rates, 16% of the population depends on the advantage.

The state is also a reliable republican bastion and voted massively for Trump in November, when it concluded the promise to reduce the cost of living for Americans, including the price of the grocery store.

“When I win, I will immediately lower prices, from the first day,” he said at a press conference in August surrounded by packaged foods, milk, meat and eggs.

Months after the president made this commitment, the prices of grocery products commonly bought such as orange juice, eggs and bacon are higher than they were at the same time last year.

It is a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Ms. Butler: “The president has not yet changed food prices and he has promised people he would.”

Trump has argued, without providing an explanation how, that the discounts of spending in the 1000 -page budgetary bill will help reduce food prices: “The decline will give everyone more food, because prices drop, grocery products are declining,” said Trump when he was specifically questioned the cuts.

“The only one, large and beautiful bill, will finally strengthen SCO through measures to share costs and common sense work requirements,” said a White House official at the BBC.

Republicans have long been divided on how to finance social protection programs like Snap and Medicaid. While many believe that the government should prioritize the balance of the budget, others, in particular in the poor regions, support the programs which directly help their voters.

Until the bill, the Senate Republicans offer $ 211 billion (154 billion pounds sterling) in cuts, states being partly responsible for difference.

In theory, the passage of the bill should be an easy political elevator because the Republicans control both the Congress and the White House.

But as the bill includes cuts in programs like Snap and Medicaid, which are popular with everyday Americans, selling the bill to all factions of the Republican Party was not an easy feat.

Private frustration and dissent reports on potential cuts in Medicaid and Snap have disclosed in recent weeks, showing the internal struggle that occurs within the party.

Virginia-Western Senator Jim Justice told Politico in June that he had warned his republican colleagues that the Snap Cup could cost their majority in the Congress when voters went again to the polls in 2026.

“If we are not paying attention, people will injure themselves, people will be upset. It will be the first thing in the new nighttime everywhere,” said the judge. “And then, we could very well awaken a situation in this country where the majority quickly becomes the minority.”

A recent survey of the Associated Press / Norc Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that 45% of Americans think that food assistance programs like SNAP are underfunded, while only 30% think that the financing levels are adequate. About a quarter of respondents thought that the programs have been surfined.

This is not the first time that the party has struggled with snap cuts, said Tracy Roof, a professor of the University of Richmond who is currently writing a book on Snap’s political history.

Under the Biden Administration, the Congress authorized the widened advantages implemented during coverage in Covid, despite the Republicans and the Democrats warning the Americans may be hungry.

“One thing about [SNAP] is that he has bipartite support, more than any other anti-pauven program, “said Professor Roof to the BBC.

But this time feels different, she said.

“One thing that distinguishes this period from previous efforts to reduce social protection programs was the will of the Republicans of the Congress to vote for things that many of them have apparently the file have many concerns,” she said.

“Before, there were always moderate Republicans, especially in the Senate, but in the two houses that held the concessions.”

Professor Roof attributes this submission to two things: the fear of putting himself on the wrong side of Trump and the lack of fear of public reactions for representatives who have seats in the congress in which they can easily be re -elected.

The BBC contacted the member of the Congress Riley Moore, who represents Martinsburg, in Virginia-Western, on the impacts of the cuts to his voters, but he did not respond.

Moore voted for the initial bill of the room, which included the cuts to break.

The Missouri senator, Josh Hawley, who had been one of the most vocal criticisms of the cups, a since Douci: Hawley told the news media that he had “always supported” most of the Medicaid cups and that he would “be well” with most of what is in the bill.

Father of two Jordanists, who has asked that his last name will not be used, has spent the last three years surviving social benefits.

He and his wife get $ 700 a month to feed their family with four people, but they still have trouble.

The 26 -year -old says that his wife had trouble finding work and taking care of their two children simultaneously, so if the changes to take an impact on his family are ready to act and get a second job.

“I’m going to make sure I can do everything I can to feed my family,” he said.

He and other Virginian-Western people follow what happens to the bill in the congress.

Cameron Whetzel, 25, grew up in a family dependent on Snap. But when he and his wife tried to ask Snap, he learned that winning $ 15 an hour was too much to qualify, he said.

“It is not great the fact that I must double my salary in order to be able to afford the grocery store,” explains Mr. Whetzel, adding “we did not buy any egg in four months, because they are too expensive”.

It is frustrated that Washington officials do not understand the impacts of the cups they support at Congress, he said.

“To make a federal cup which would then be placed on the state which already has trouble that, it is a bit like a horse on horseback,” adds Mr. Whetzel. “Whether you believe in the small government or the great government, the government must support someone, in a way.”

Meiying Wu video, with additional reports from Bernd Debusmann Jr.