The Food Research & Action Center held a rally in Upper Senate Park today before heading to Capitol Hill offices to lobby against cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other nutrition programs in the budget reconciliation process.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., and other legislators, faith and union leaders spoke at the early-morning event.

Meanwhile, Republican members of the House Agriculture Committee met to discuss how to follow the House Budget Committee instruction to cut $230 billion from programs under the committee’s jurisdiction. Most, if not all, of that cut is expected to come from SNAP.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., has said he is unwilling to cut current benefits.

The measure is expected to raise work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries and to forbid future noninflationary increases through rewrites of the Thrifty Food Plan that is used to determine benefit levels. But that still doesn’t reduce the spending level enough, and passing along part of the cost of benefits to the states is under consideration. Red state governors are likely to object to being expected to make up for the cut at the federal level.

Thompson last week pointed out that several governors are asking USDA to grant waivers to allow them to forbid SNAP beneficiaries from buying sugar-sweetened beverages and other foods. Thompson said that if the governors propose to manage the program they should also agree to fund it. The states manage SNAP, and there have also been proposals to require states with high payment error rates to pay more of the benefits than other states.

A Thompson spokesman did not respond to a request for comment today, but in the past has pointed out that the House budget bill is not the final action Congress will take on reconciliation. The Senate budget instruction is to cut $1 billion from programs under the jurisdiction of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and the two chambers will have to reach agreement on the final bill.

Ty Jones Cox, vice president of food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has posted on X a thread about recent policy developments.

“As House Republicans are working to reach agreement on cuts to SNAP to help fund tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit wealthy households, it is important to remember that these proposals would take away entirely or reduce food assistance for millions of people, making it hard for them to afford basic needs and worsening hunger,” CBPP said in a statement. “These cuts would hurt families with children, older adults, people with disabilities, veterans, and small business owners and workers.”