Former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Xochitl Torres Small: “Rob Bresnahan (PA-08) ... Promised Not To Cut Food Stamps. In Fact, He Actually Signed A Letter Committing To Protect SNAP. And Then He Just Turned Around And, Sitting On The House Ag Committee, Voted To Cut $300 Billion Out Of SNAP.”

May 20, 2025

PENNSYLVANIA - Last week, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Xochitl Torres Small sat down with The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau to discuss Rep. Rob Breshanan (PA-08) and his Republican colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee voting to slash food aid by as much as 300 billion dollars and the devastating impacts that could affect millions of Pennsylvanians across the Commonwealth.

In their conversation, former Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small describes how the bill will take a wrecking ball to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and negatively impact Pennsylvania farmers, seniors, children, and millions who rely on the program to put food on the table in order to expand tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.

ICYMI: The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau

• Torres Small: “This is a crucial program for people all across the country. Whether it’s seniors who are on limited fixed budgets, whether it's people in between jobs or families trying to keep food on the table, SNAP is a lifeline.”

• Torres Small: “There are so many bipartisan opportunities to do things better, to make sure that SNAP is used as efficiently as possible. But just dramatically cutting, taking out a billion dollars from Pennsylvania, for people who need food, is not the way to do that.”

• Torres Small: “Farmers also rely on SNAP, whether it’s making sure families have money to pay for groceries that farmers are growing - that’s a fundamental part of the food system. So this across the board is harming both people who are trying not to go hungry and farmers who are trying to be able to get a fair share of the food dollar.”

• LeBeau: “There is also the added wrinkle that a lot of U.S. crops are not being purchased overseas because of some of the tariff policies that the [Trump] administration has put in place.”

• Torres Small: “The new representative, Rob Bresnahan (PA-08) - he promised not to cut food stamps. In fact, he actually signed a letter committing to protect SNAP. And then he just turned around and, sitting on the House Ag Committee, voted to cut 300 billion dollars out of SNAP. So, that’s going to impact over 145,000 of his constituents.”

• LeBeau: “Particularly citizens that are in the 8th congressional district need to reach out to the Congressman’s office and make their thoughts known. But Pennsylvanians writ large across the board in this Commonwealth who are concerned about this issue in particular need to make their voices known to their Members of Congress. They all have local offices, in addition to the Washington DC number that one can call, so there are many many ways that citizens can make their voices heard.”

• Torres Small: “And it has an impact on all of us… For every dollar of SNAP spending, there’s more than $1.74 generated for economic activity. And then when you look at the larger amount, for a billion dollars in SNAP spending, that supports over 13,500 jobs.”

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