From NewHampshireBulletin.com: ”
Maria Khan spent much of this year terrified as she watched Congress debate whether to cut funding for federal food assistance and other programs she relies on.
“It severely affected my mental health,” she said. “I was getting really bad. I had to get off social media. I’ve had to stop looking into it because I couldn’t function. I was just living in fear, and I was finding that I was really having a hard time parenting and functioning for myself.”
In July, her fears were realized when President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act became law. The behemoth legislation touches nearly every segment of the federal government and makes severe cuts to Medicaid and other social programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP or food stamps, that Khan uses to feed her family.
The SNAP changes, many of which go into effect as soon as states can implement them while others will be implemented as late as 2028, are expected to cause roughly 44,000 families in New Hampshire — and 22.3 million nationwide — to lose some or all of their benefits, according to analysis from the Urban Institute. However, many economists and hunger experts say the consequences will be much more far-reaching, straining food banks and other social services, hitting the bottom line of farmers and grocery stores and municipalities.”
(This is my favorite part)”Drew Cline, executive director at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a New Hampshire conservative think tank, said the state should’ve seen this coming.
Cline argued New Hampshire “has relied for far too long on these pretty high federal expenditures on these programs, and it was becoming increasingly clear as the deficits started to really grow in recent years that the federal government simply wasn’t going to be able to maintain its commitment to these programs… The spending cuts in the law were designed to make space in the budget to extend a series of tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term. The tax cuts have been lambasted by those who point out that they disproportionately benefit the wealthy and are expected to add $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office.”
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In a 2021 study evaluating “bangs-for-the-buck,” Moody’s Analytics determined SNAP is one of the most effective programs at growing the economy, particularly because it grows when the economy recedes.
“SNAP is particularly effective economic stimulus because it provides resources to households that do not have very much to begin with, and those individuals and families spend them quickly and directly in their local economies,” Phil Sletten, an economist and research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, wrote in an email to the Bulletin.
“Dollars spent on SNAP support jobs at community grocery stores and provide supports to families that may otherwise go without food, hurting their abilities to be healthy and participate in the economy in other ways, such as working,” he continued. “Less federal money flowing to New Hampshire through SNAP, and the Granite Staters that benefit from it, could reduce economic activity in the state, including in rural areas.”
You can read the entire article here: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2025/09/15/in-new-hampshire-families-who-rely-on-snap-may-go-hungry-others-will-be-affected-too/
More wealth is transferred from the many to the few. Under the guise of cutting our deficit and eliminating fraud, waste and abuse vital social programs are being gouged in order to benefit the rich.
The stated goal of these guts is to stimulate growth through tax cuts, but the investment of SNAP funds into a community already accomplishes this. For every dollar spent on SNAP there is a return of $1.50- $$1.89. That money keeps local economies going. It feeds people and helps them stabilize so that they are able to contribute to their community. Taking away food from working families, from the disabled, veterans and the elderly punishes them in order to reward the rich for being rich.
Trickle down does not work; instead of wealth “trickling down” from the rich, it tends to “trickle up” or concentrate at the top. Research and data from the past several decades show that tax cuts for the wealthy have largely failed to stimulate economic growth or unemployment, instead increasing income inequality. A more effective approach, sometimes called “trickle-up” or “trickle-across” economics, involves strengthening the middle and lower classes through policies like increased wages and public investments, which can better stimulate demand and economic growth.
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