Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell is among more than 200 mayors who are formally encouraging the protection of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and delay administrative funding shifts to states.
The bipartisan letter sent to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Senator John Boozman and Ranking Member Senator Amy Klobuchar urges Congress to reject cuts to SNAP that they believe will deepen the country's food insecurity crisis, according to The United States Conference of Mayors.
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon and Memphis Mayor Paul Young are also among the mayors who have signed on to the letter along with O'Connell. The letter states that more than 4 million individuals have lost SNAP benefits since the enactment of
H.R. 1 legislation, according to the Department of Agriculture.
“At a time when many Americans continue to face economic challenges, we should be working to expand opportunity and food security, not create new barriers to assistance," the letter states.
The mayors are asking the Senate to:
- Reverse the cuts to SNAP and fully fund the program.
- Delay the administrative and program cost shifts included in H.R. 1 and treat all states equitably by extending the benefit-cost shift delay to fiscal year 2030 for all states, to allow time to improve payment error rates and budget for increased costs to the states.
- Protect SNAP benefit levels and eligibility standards to ensure that vulnerable households are not pushed further into poverty.
- Enact legislation to effectively transition Puerto Rico from the Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP) to SNAP.
According to Tennessee'sDepartment of Human Services, there were 597,890 individual residents of the Volunteer State this past May participating in SNAP. Only time will tell how the Trump administration will respond to the letter.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Nashville's Freddie O'Connell and 200 mayors want SNAP protection
