When the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned, “Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01,” it sounded like the inevitable result of a government shutdown. But the line, plastered atop the department’s website, hides a deeper truth: The well didn’t dry up naturally. It was drained on purpose.
On November 1, millions of families who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were set to lose their food benefits, leaving parents who plan meals down to the dollar to stare at empty grocery carts.. A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from suspending food aid, noting the “terror” it has caused families, who will continue to live in fear of losing their benefits under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The cruelty feels sudden, but it’s anything but accidental.
This moment was built, brick by brick, into Republican policy. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill, passed earlier this year, was hailed by Republicans as a model of fiscal responsibility. In reality, it was a Trojan horse packed with provisions designed to quietly sabotage SNAP, one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the nation.
For decades, the USDA has adjusted the Thrifty Food Plan — the formula that determines SNAP benefit levels — to reflect what it actually costs to eat. In 2021, after years of stagnation, the USDA finally modernized the plan, raising benefits by $1.40 per person per day. That small increase helped families keep up with rising grocery costs and better align benefits with real nutrition needs.
Trump and the GOP’s new law stopped that progress cold. It restricts USDA updates to once every five years and demands that any future change be cost-neutral. Translation: no more benefit increases, even if food prices skyrocket. As inflation drives grocery bills higher, SNAP recipients will see their purchasing power erode year after year. The result is institutionalized hunger.
The law’s cruelty doesn’t end with benefit cuts. Beginning in 2027, the federal government will slash its share of SNAP’s administrative costs from 50 percent to 25 percent, forcing states to cover the rest. Ten states, including California, New York, and North Carolina, rely on county governments to manage SNAP. Those counties serve 14.6 million people, or roughly one-third of all participants. In Alabama, nearly one in seven residents rely on the SNAP program to help them meet their basic needs.
That shift will devastate local budgets. States and counties will be forced to either raise taxes, cut services, or both. SNAP offices will be overwhelmed, leading to longer processing times and fewer resources to help families navigate the system. People won’t just lose benefits because of budget cuts; they’ll lose them because the bureaucracy collapses under its own weight.
And for immigrant families, the pain will be even more acute. The Big Beautiful Bill sharply restricts SNAP eligibility for immigrants — a move that doesn’t save much money but sends a clear political message: Hunger is acceptable if it happens to the right people.
When the USDA says “the well has run dry,” it’s not just an accounting statement. It’s a moral one. Republicans have spent years dismantling the mechanisms that keep Americans fed and now, when the system predictably fails, they shrug and call it unfortunate.
The shutdown isn’t the cause of the SNAP crisis; it’s just the spark that revealed the dry kindling underneath. The Big Beautiful Bill laid the groundwork. It weakened the safety net, shifted costs to states, and guaranteed that when Washington stopped functioning, hunger would spread fastest among those who could least afford it.
SNAP has never been a luxury. It’s a promise that in the richest nation on earth, no one should go hungry. It’s one of the few government programs that works exactly as intended: simple, efficient, and life-saving. But it only works when lawmakers let it.
Trump and Republicans call their bill “beautiful.” There’s nothing beautiful about forcing parents to choose between feeding their kids and paying rent. There’s nothing fiscally responsible about starving the system until it collapses. The Trump administration is telling the nation that for millions of families about to go hungry, the well has run dry. But for ballrooms, billionaires, and the corporations they control, there is an endless spigot of special tax breaks and loopholes that keeps their wealth skyrocketing.
The good news is that wells can be refilled. But first, voters have to decide they’ve had enough of lawmakers who call cruelty a budget plan.
Kristen Crowell is the executive director of Fair Share America.
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