Serrano Denounces Harsh SNAP Cuts Bill

Press Release

Congressman José E. Serrano today denounced the harsh funding cuts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that House Republicans voted to enact. Serrano voted against the bill along with Democratic colleagues.

"Cutting $40 billion in food stamps while refusing to cut agricultural subsidies to millionaires is unconscionable," said Congressman José E. Serrano. "The cuts to the SNAP program represent one of the cruelest visions of government that we have seen in generations. People are suffering in this economy, and one of the principal lifelines that we extend to them is food and nutrition assistance. Cutting back on that assistance will leave people without food and without hope. I find that idea repugnant and repulsive.

Currently, 47 million people rely on SNAP. Over 92% of people on SNAP are children, the elderly, disabled, or working families below the poverty line. SNAP recipients currently receive $1.40 per meal. Despite these facts, the GOP bill will cut off food benefits from nearly 4 million Americans next year, doing particular harm to children, seniors, veterans, Native Americans, and Americans living in communities with high unemployment. This bill comes at a time when one in five children (16 million) struggle with hunger, a record-high. SNAP is a proven poverty-reduction program, lifting 4 million people out of poverty in 2012.

"When you consider the facts of the situation--the record numbers of people in need--this effort to cut SNAP becomes legislatively immoral. I stand with my community in saying that these cuts are wrong. I stand as their representative in voting NO on this shameful bill. We cannot take food from the mouths of the least among us. That is not the way that our nation has acted in the past, and not the way we should act now."

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