Republicans Revise SNAP Cut Axed By Parliamentarian

WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill have revised the food benefit cut that was deemed ineligible for their so-called Big Beautiful Bill by the Senate rules referee.

Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), chair of the committee that oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, announced on Tuesday that the Senate parliamentarian had OK’ed the new version.

“This paves the way for important reforms that improve efficiency and management of SNAP while encouraging responsible use of taxpayer dollars,” Boozman said in a release.

Democrats immediately said, however, that they still had a chance to challenge the revised provision and that Republicans were celebrating prematurely.

And then Boozman’s office wound up taking down its triumphant press release, conceding the new version of the proposal had not yet been approved.

“The Senate parliamentarian has not made an official ruling on the revised text,” an aide said in an email, adding that Senate Republicans believe they’re moving in the right direction.

The original proposal, which was essentially killed by the parliamentarian on Friday, would have required states to share in the $100 billion annual cost of SNAP benefits based on their rates of erroneous payments.

Under the fast-track “budget reconciliation” process Republicans are using to pass their massive bill of tax and spending cuts, measures deemed “extraneous” by the parliamentarian are subject to the Senate’s 60 vote threshold, meaning Republicans have to drop them from the broader legislation if they want to pass it with a simple majority vote.

Boozman said the parliamentarian’s concern was simply that the bill text, as originally drafted, which would require states with error rates above 6% to share costs starting in 2028, didn’t give states enough time to calculate their match rates.

“Their concern was the states didn’t have enough time to analyze the data so they can respond to it. So we’ve just come out of with a mechanism that they have a longer period,” Boozman told HuffPost on Tuesday.

The updated proposal would allow states to base their error rates on either fiscal 2025 or 2026 data, Boozman’s office said.

The SNAP provision is a key part of the megabill’s spending cuts, which partly offset the bill’s roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts. The Senate SNAP changes are less stringent than in the House version of the bill, which would require all states to share benefit costs regardless of error rates. Currently, the federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits. Making states cover a portion would give them a strong incentive to cut benefits, reduce enrollment or even refuse to participate in the program at all.

A Democratic aide said the parliamentarian hadn’t shared her guidance for the new legislative language and that Democrats still planned to challenge it.

“I think what they should do is stop trying to create the 4 million hungry children to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has led Democrats’ efforts to challenge Republicans’ use of the reconciliation process, said in an interview.

In an analysis of the House bill published Monday, the Congressional Budget Office said, “Some states would maintain current SNAP benefits and eligibility and that others would modify benefits or eligibility or possibly leave the program altogether.”