The Senate and House Budget Bills Both Boost Government Payments to Some Farmers While Cutting SNAP
Republicans like to pit government farm programs against SNAP nutrition benefits. The Cocklebur created these data tables to document state-level spending in each sector.
This analysis was co-written by Jake Davis.
The draft Senate budget reconciliation package for their contribution to the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act is coming into focus this week as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) tries to pass a bill by a self-imposed Fourth of July deadline. Yesterday (June 16, 2025), Senate Republican leaders announced their initial draft of tax provisions for the bill that will likely be President Donald Trump’s signature domestic accomplishment (NOTE—for bad or good).
Both the House-passed bill and the Senate draft contain large cuts to domestic spending in order to pay for huge tax cuts that primarily benefit billionaires, multimillionaires, and corporations. The tax cuts in both packages far outweigh the domestic spending cuts. The Republican budget reconciliation package that finally passes will inevitably create a huge budget deficit and explode the federal debt. So much for the party of “fiscal responsibility.”
Two programs featuring attention in both packages are government payments to farmers for income support and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. These programs have historically been budgeted through the federal Farm Bill, negotiated by the Agriculture Committees in each chamber. Both programs are critical to rural America, driving agricultural and food economies in every state.
Agriculture Committee debates in both the Senate and House regularly feature Republicans blasting SNAP spending while supporting more government payments to farmers. Democrats generally support increases to both farm programs and SNAP.
The House bill passed in May included a $294 billion cut to SNAP and a $55 billion increase to government payments to farmers. The Senate draft cuts SNAP by $211 billion while increasing farm spending by $67 billion. Depending on what ultimately passes through the Senate, these differences will likely be negotiated through a conference committee of members from both chambers.
The final budget reconciliation package details will have serious impacts on local economies throughout the nation. The Cocklebur created the following data table to explain the relative levels of spending for government farm payments and SNAP recipients per state.
NOTE ABOUT METHODOLOGY—The number of farms receiving government payments and amount of payments is from the 2022 Ag Census. The SNAP figures are 2024 averages from the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service SNAP Data Tables. SNAP benefits are calculated using the $187.54/month average SNAP per person benefit.
Cutting SNAP while boosting government payments to farmers will impact each state differently. Only five states have more government spending on farm payments than they do on SNAP, all Plains states: Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
The budget reconciliation package, like all budget and tax policies, is about picking winners and losers compared with current programs. It’s obvious that the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act is picking a handful of farmers in a handful of states as winners, while millions of SNAP recipients in many, many state economies are going to lose out.
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.