Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about $290 billion,

SNAP cuts, jobs, and effects.

Okay, so the GOP is currently pushing cuts of $290 billion for SNAP.

SNAP helps about 42 million people per year. This is what used

to be called food stamps. The program is structured so the federal government funds it,

but the states administer it. One of the GOP plans is to push some of the spending burden to the states.

Adding additional costs to the states that are seeing their economies contract because of Trump's

trade war doesn't seem wise. When economies contract, the states generally get less tax revenue,

which means they have less money to spend. The constant idea in

Congress of shifting the burden to states seems like it will create long-term problems.

A senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said, quote, states, even to just pay a modest portion,

would radically, radically change the program's funding structure. What's likely to happen is a lot of

people are going to lose their benefits. As a consequence, as states think about now having to pony up the resources to cover the shortfall.

Snap is life-changing for so many people.

This is completely unconscionable that essentially we're making it even harder for people to afford healthy food,

at a time when so many are struggling to make ends

meat. That seems like a fair summary. The states will have less money and now have a new expense.

Luckily for states, the GOP seems to have included a way to throw people off the program without it

seeming like it was them. Currently, unless the person qualifies for an exemption, the program

has a work requirement of 20 hours per week for people aged 54 or younger who don't have kids. The GOP wants to raise that and make people 55 to

64 also complete the work requirements. The problem is that studies indicate that work requirements

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