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Looking out from under his ball cap with the words “Marines” stitched across the bill, Richard Maldonado's eyes are tired. He got to this parking lot on San Antonio’s Southwest Side at 4 a.m. to get food from the San Antonio Food Bank. The distribution last Saturday didn’t start until 9 but he said he didn’t want to miss out.
“Without them, we'd be in bad shape,” he said.
Sitting next to him, Corina Guttierez said her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — which she still calls food stamps — is running out more quickly than expected, and they have to rely even more on the San Antonio Food Bank.
“The stamps are once a month, and before we know it, by almost two weeks, we're out of the food,” she said.
Congressional Republicans continue to push for spending cuts to the nation’s social safety net, including unprecedented ones to SNAP — the largest feeding program in the nation.
The reconciliation bill will cut more than $290 billion from the program, push billions of dollars in costs down to the states and push people off the low-income feeding program through work requirements.
Maldonado and Guttierez are among the estimated 41 million people who accessed SNAP last year.
The two are in their 60s and 70s, and they worry the proposed cuts would lead to less food to go around for more people and they will have to turn to family for help.
“We're gonna be dependent on people like donating money or food or whatever. It's gonna come down to that,” Maldonado added.
Up ahead, teams of volunteers cut open 50-pound bags of white onions. Next to them, volunteers rush to break down pallets of limes, beans, broccoli and yellow squash.
“Squash are going into this bag. So you're just going to keep on filling up squash,” said one volunteer as the team bagged the items quickly. Ten onions went into a bag. Thirty limes into another.
The team was short on volunteers, and Food Bank staff called back to the headquarters to ask for more to come.
More than 250 cars were already in line for food by 7:30 a.m., and more kept showing up.
“As the administration moves towards budget reconciliation, we have less food in our warehouse to serve lines like this,” said Eric Cooper, CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank.
His organization has already lost $8 million worth of federal funding in Trump’s first 100 days.
But with inflation and tariffs uncertainty pushing food prices up, Congress’ proposed massive cuts to SNAP would result in food banks like this doubling the number they serve.
“The trickle down will be rationing. I mean, I'll take the food that we have here at the distribution, cut it in half and then basically give families less,” he said.
Congressional Republicans were directed to find cuts throughout the government.
In one April agriculture committee hearing, the GOP linked the SNAP cuts to increasing the number of people working. Numerous studies show that work requirements — like the ones Republicans are proposing — have little impact on labor participation. The rules are effective at pushing people off SNAP, though.
One of the current proposals could require states to pay for as much as 25% of the benefit cost of SNAP. This idea is especially worrying advocates because during a recession, states with shrinking revenues and must-balance budgets are least likely to afford it. It could require $1 billion, according to Feeding Texas, the state’s network of food banks.
“We'd be setting up a situation where just when people are most needing SNAP benefits of their hardest to get,” said Diane Schanzenbach, an economist at Northwestern University.
Back at the food distribution, the line is moments away from moving. Jesse Moncivaiz sat waiting. The former construction worker said he had multiple back surgeries and has been on long-term disability for years. He said every little bit helps for people like him.
“And you go to the store. You get two bags. That's already, like, $50. You ain't got nothing in them," he said, “But I think these lines are going to get longer if they cut everything.”
Lines of cars filled with hungry people may end up getting less food.
