Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. BROWN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member McGovern for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and the underlying bill.

For the first time in history, this bill would force States to pay for part of SNAP benefits, and it would require States to increase their share of administrative costs.

This is an unfunded mandate, plain and simple.

Let's be clear. The costs are staggering, the consequences are devastating, and the cruelty is deeply disturbing.

This policy punishes those who can least afford it: seniors on a fixed income, veterans, and families already forced to choose between gas and groceries.

States will be stuck in a corner. They will cut benefits, cut eligibility, or cut public safety, education, housing, and mental health programs just to stay afloat.

This isn't just a budgeting decision. It is a values decision, and for what? All to take from the hungry and give it to the wealthy. To slash SNAP benefits just $6 per day hands a quarter-million-dollar tax break to the top 0.1 percent. That is not policy. That is plunder. The math doesn't lie.

In North Carolina, it is $400 million. That is more than the entire State budget for child development and early education. In Georgia, it is $500 million, double what the State spends on child welfare. In my State of Ohio, it is $300 million, four times the transportation budget.

My colleagues are writing checks that the government can't cash. When the money runs out, the food runs out. Children will go hungry. Seniors will skip meals. Veterans, working moms, and working dads will be turned down and turned away all because of a vote taken here today.

This mandate isn't just unfunded. It is unfathomable.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this provision, reject this rule, and reject this betrayal. Don't reward the rich on the backs of hungry Americans.
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