Republicans in the House and Senate are proposing to slash more than $230 billion from SNAP and school nutrition programs in order to fund more tax handouts for the wealthy and billion-dollar corporations. But it’s far from a done deal.
SNAP is not only our most effective anti-hunger program, it plays a crucial role in reducing poverty and improving health and economic outcomes. It’s also linked to better education outcomes and self-sufficiency, and plays an important role in supporting rural communities.
SNAP is one of the most cost-effective government programs in existence. Every dollar spent on SNAP generates $1.80 in local communities. Cuts to SNAP and school nutrition programs will have devastating consequences for generations to come.
Individual states currently pay a portion of the cost of administering SNAP, while the federal government pays the actual benefits. Implementing a $230 billion cut could force states to take on a portion of the cost of nutrition benefits for the first time, a radical change in the program that could lead to drastic cuts, increasing wait times for approval for benefits, or put a huge squeeze on states leading to slashed investments in other programs.
Cutting SNAP (and Medicaid, another right-wing target) also makes it harder for eligible families to obtain free or reduced-price school meals, summer food assistance for school-aged children (Summer EBT), and WIC benefits. School meal programs and Summer EBT automatically enroll eligible children using SNAP and Medicaid, while WIC agencies use automated systems to check for SNAP or Medicaid eligibility. In addition, the House Budget Committee has put forth numerous specific budget-cutting proposals, including a $12 billion cut to free school breakfast and lunch programs, affecting 24,000 schools nationwide.
Cutting funding for nutrition programs in order to pay for some of Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax handout―mostly to the wealthy and corporations―is an abomination.
In this multimedia brown bag session, independent DACA activist Allyson Duarte and Poets Against Walls co-founder Emmy Pérez will talk about recent activism in the Rio Grande Valley in support of borderland communities. They will share video footage of speech clips and poetry performances to introduce some of the intersectional work they are involved in. Poets Against Walls is a collective of poets with a DIY philosophy that aims to amplify and help document borderland poetry, testimonio, and the spoken word to help counter mainstream depictions of the borderlands. Allyson Duarte’s work and advocacy commitments emphasize the need to seek solutions beyond whatever policy measures can achieve through the limited scope of party politics, which is almost always defined by gridlock that is rooted in private interests.
Allyson Duarte is a DACA recipient and proud resident of the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas. She currently resides in DC and is pursuing graduate studies at American University. Her advocacy efforts revolve primarily around immigration in border communities, but she has also partaken in efforts related to education, LGBTQ+, and environmental issues. Allyson is emphatic about the need to supersede advocacy and organizing modes that find reliance on America’s two-party electoral system.
Emmy Pérez poetry collections include With the River on Our Face and Solstice. Her work also appears in anthologies such as Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, Other Musics: New Latina Poetry, and What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump. She is a past recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, CantoMundo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop for socially engaged writers. She grew up in Santa Ana, California, where she recently received LibroMobile’s inaugural Modesta Avila Award, and for the past 18 years has lived in the Texas borderlands. Currently, she is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and serves as Associate Director for the Center for Mexican American Studies. She currently serves on the organizing committee for CantoMundo national literary organization and co-founded Poets Against Walls.
Co-Sponsored by Split This Rock and the Institute for Policy Studies, this event is presented as part of “What Is It, Then, Between Us?: Poetry & Democracy,” an annual programming initiative of the Poetry Coalition.