Headline Roundup • July 17th, 2025
Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Brings SNAP Changes. Who Will They Benefit?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
President Trump’s new One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) has made changes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), prompting media dialogue.
Undercutting Old Norms: Tom Philpott of Mother Jones (Left bias) noted, “In 1964, Congress mashed food aid and farm aid together, hoping to protect [SNAP] from budget-cutting conservatives.” Philpott said, “The compromise has worked ever since,” but now the OBBB, which bypasses the farm bill, “has vaporized the old coalition, literally taking food off the tables of poor people and handing much of the savings to large-scale commodity farmers.” He added that new legislation slashes $185.9 billion from SNAP and attributed the cost-cutting to compensate for tax cuts to the wealthy, border security, and military spending.
Double The Progress: Christian Schneider of National Review (Right) criticized how the SNAP program is used by many recipients, noting that 25% of SNAP money is used on candy and soft drinks. He added that “obesity-related illnesses are the single highest Medicaid expense, costing taxpayers $60 billion per year” and that clamping down on how they are used would save American taxpayers money and improve public health. Schneider criticized Health Secretary Kennedy for his stance on vaccines, but, regarding food stamps, concluded, “For once, RFK Jr. is on the right path. Listen to him now and you might die of the measles, but at least you won’t catch it from a Three Musketeers bar.”
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Featured Coverage of this Story
Even before Donald Trump retook the White House, US policymakers had created a paradox of plenty in the nation’s agricultural system: environmentally destructive overproduction of a few major food commodities, combined with stubbornly high and rising hunger rates, particularly among children. Now, the Trump administration and its congressional allies have found a way to intensify and prolong both crises at once, with a radical reshaping of food and farm policy nestled within their Big Beautiful Bill.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Back in 2012, Donald Trump — real estate developer, future president, and amateur dietician — observed on Twitter that he had “never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke.” A few days later, a perplexed Trump added, in a positively Lincolnian tone, “The more Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, etc you drink, the more weight you gain?”
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