Media Coverage

As Republican congressional leaders look for ways to offset more than $4 trillion in tax cuts heavily tilted in favor of the wealthy, Ohio’s food bank leader says cuts to the federal food safety net would be devastating.

When the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this month released its piece of a federal budget bill, Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said it took a “commonsense approach” to the federal Supplemental Assistance to Needy Families, or SNAP program.

However, the approach could also be seen as an unfunded mandate to states and local governments — and an attempt to hassle some of the most vulnerable off of a program meant to keep them from going hungry, critics say.

The changes to the program colloquially known as food stamps are part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which faces a July 4 deadline.

It would give $4.6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. In an analysis, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, estimated that 70% of the benefit would go to the “top 10% of the income distribution.”

A raft of proposals coming from Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C. and Columbus will slash health care and other vital programs for the poor in rural Ohio and in its cities, recent analyses say.

An advocacy group is trying to pressure the state’s Republican U.S. senators to vote against it.

Republican lawmakers in D.C. and Columbus are hashing out budgets. As they do, they’re looking for ways to cut spending to finance tax cuts weighted heavily toward the wealthy.

The reconciliation bill — President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” — passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would provide about would cut taxes by more than $3 trillion and give 70% of the money to the richest 10% according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

At the state level, Policy Matters Ohio said that a flat-tax proposal passed by the Ohio Senate would cost the state $1.1 billion a year and give 96% of the benefit to the state’s top 20% of income earners.

A raft of proposals coming from Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C. and Columbus will slash health care and other vital programs for the poor in rural Ohio and in its cities, recent analyses say.

An advocacy group is trying to pressure the state’s Republican U.S. senators to vote against it.

Republican lawmakers in D.C. and Columbus are hashing out budgets. As they do, they’re looking for ways to cut spending to finance tax cuts weighted heavily toward the wealthy.

Ohio food banks are urging state lawmakers to approve what they said is a modest budget increase needed to get more fresh, local produce into the hands of hungry families.

The request coincides with National Fruits and Vegetables Month and a broader call to support both food access and local farms. Through the Ohio Agricultural Clearance Program, surplus produce from nearly 100 Ohio farms is delivered to food banks statewide.

Alex Buck, president of the Fruit Growers Marketing Association, said the funding request is not just about food access, it is about sustaining local agriculture.

"Our relationship with the food banks isn't for profitability purposes, it is the right thing to do to support our communities," Buck explained. "It also allows our farms to be compensated fairly for produce that would not normally make it to the retailers."

Ohioans on the front-line fighting hunger are urging the state’s U.S. Senators to change the budget reconciliation package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill makes dramatic changes to the food stamps program, known as SNAP, placing a substantial new burden on states. It comes at a moment when food banks and pantries say they’re stretched to the breaking point.

“We’re the richest nation on earth,” Grace Church pastor and Mid-Ohio Food Collective Board Member Michael Young said Thursday.

“This issue of feeding people should not be this difficult or this hard,” he continued, “(There) should not be many decisions to make when we’re talking about putting food on people’s table — it is a moral obligation.”