This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made over the July 4th weekend when Republicans in Washington passed the piece of legislation that they have called the big Beautiful Bill.

That bill has included historic cuts to food assistance, Snap benefits.

Now, Republicans have said that's wrong.

They claim that it doesn't contain those cuts.

We're going to talk about that.

Their own budget offices have disagreed.

And this hour we're going to aim to sort out what's actually happening.

According to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cut or reduce Snap benefits to 4 million Americans, roughly 2.4 million could lose their food assistance entirely.

Around 40 million Americans receive Snap benefits.

That includes 16 million children, 8 million seniors, 4 million non-elderly adults with disabilities.

But Republicans have been telling constituents that their bill only cuts waste, fraud and abuse.

Speaker Mike Johnson went on the national news circuit this summer and repeatedly said that the only people who might lose Snap are the lazy 20 somethings who refuse to get a job and want to live off the government.

But those who work in food assistance have been frantically warning that is wrong.

This hour, the team from Foodlink joins us to help put the cuts in perspective.

They're going to explain some of the work they do in this community.

That, of course, is related to food security, and we're going to do our best to understand what is coming in the big, beautiful bill.

We're joined in studio by the CEO of Foodlink, Julia Tedesco.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Next to Julie is Whitley Hasty, who is Foodlink Benefits Navigation Manager.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you.

Hi.

>> And Mitch Gruber is Foodlink Chief.

Hello.

Welcome back to the program, sir.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> I do want to start by listening to some of the characterization we've been hearing from Speaker Johnson, and I want to listen to a clip that that comes from CBS News Face the Nation.

This is what he says about cuts, myth versus reality, cutting food assistance in this bill.

>> We don't want to slash benefits.

And again, I make this very clear.

We are not cutting Medicaid.

We are not cutting Snap.

We're working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse.

Snap, for example, listen to the statistics in 2024, over $11 billion in Snap payments were were erroneous.

I mean that's that's a number that everyone acknowledges is real.

It may be much higher than is like the second largest recipient of food.

>> Stamps in the country, sir.

>> So let me explain it, Margaret.

Let me explain it.

The states, the states are not properly administering this because they don't have enough skin in the game.

So what we've done in the bill is add some.

Just a modest state sharing component so that they'll pay attention to that so that we can reduce fraud.

Why again, so that it is preserved for the people that need it the most.

This is common sense, Margaret.

It's good government and everybody in both sides of the aisle should agree to that.

>> And speaker Mike Johnson, talking to CBS News Face the Nation and I'm I'll start with the CEO of Foodlink.

But I'll ask all of you to weigh in.

What do you think?

First of all, when you hear that clip.

>> I think it's a mischaracterization of what is widely known as the most successful anti-poverty program in our country.

Snap, snap, snap benefits, specifically, is that it has a very low waste and fraud rate.

Is is what we understand and that it ultimately is a program that is far more beneficial not just to individuals and families, but to our country at large.

It is an economic driver in our nation.

It supports, it supports health.

It helps to keep health care costs lower, helps to keep kids in schools, helps to keep families together, helps to help adults find gainful employment rather than than sitting at home.

So I think just a full mischaracterization.

>> Whitley, what did you hear in that clip?

>> similarly.

Yeah, it's a it's a huge miss characterization.

I think it's hard not to see this as, an incredibly costly, costly, you know, tool to, to implement new to new implement new rules.

I don't think that the families and individuals and households that I work with on a daily basis really understand, the, the changes that are going to happen.

And it's very confusing when it, when messages are put out like, you know, we're not there's no intention to harm or cut benefits when really what was forecasted is just a lot more work for families to get help paying for food.

Simply put.

>> Yeah.

And I take your point that you're working with families right now who are concerned and confused about this.

But I think Republicans Washington would say, hey, as long as they're legitimately eligible, they're not going to be affected at all.

Is that your understanding?

>> I mean, the fact that this is characterized as just,.

You know, a way to shift the responsibility onto states is just it, you know, the point of the effectiveness of Snap is lost.

You know, it's a, a lifeline for a lot of families, hardworking families, people who are working full time jobs and just not making enough money right now to put enough adequate, healthy food on the table.

So it's hard to translate.

you know, what the legislative intent is to families who are coming to us for assistance and help and just making ends meet.

>> All right.

Mitch Gruber, what did you hear?

>> Their total spin.

Not true.

and as a matter of fact, the the the projections by OMB and at the federal level was, was that this was going to be billions of dollars in reductions to Snap benefits.

They may not call them cuts.

They might call them changes to eligibility criteria.

But I want to highlight the the four particular ways.

Sorry to get right into the meat of it.

No.

The four very particular ways that Snap benefits are being changed.

And you can hear that in some ways, Johnson, you know, probably there's some fidelity to his comment, but in other ways it's just complete spin.

So the first is the state cost share.

And I want to get into that when we have time.

But until now the feds have have picked up the entire bill of Snap benefits.

And now they're asking states.

And in New York State, they're going to also ask the county to pick up a share of that.

And by the way, all the points Julia made before about the impact are correct.

She also could have mentioned economic development.

There's a huge amount of dollars that are spent, given to us by the federal government that all by nature are spent in this community.

So huge loss.

If any states decide to not pick up that cost share.

But that's what states have to pick up part of the bill.

The second, I think, a really important one that I'm sure Whitley can get into, a bit more of facts than I can is changes is stalling to the thrifty food plan.

So essentially, the Thrifty Food plan is the formula that determines what each Snap recipient receives.

It's based on stuff related to the cost of food, the cost of poverty levels, all sorts of different things are baked into this thing called the Thrifty Food Plan.

The Biden administration, for the first time in decades, actually increased it.

And so Snap benefits went up for a number of people.

And what this bill has done is it has frozen it.

There will not be a more increases to the thrifty food plan.

So that is you may not call it a cut.

but that's how it's going to feel to almost everyone on it.

The third, and probably the hardest one is work requirements, which is what I think will probably spend a whole lot of time on and work requirements have changed to cut people off of Snap benefits.

As a very clear example, until this bill was passed, there was an exemption for veterans and homeless people.

If you were a veteran and a homeless person, you did not have to abide by work requirements because it's very difficult to be able to hit work requirements if you're homeless and and veterans.

Part of the exemption there was to, probably honor people's service.

Those exemptions are gone.

People who are now people who are veterans, who are homeless, veterans, homeless veterans are now going to have to log 80 hours of work per month or community service or volunteer work to prove that they can have benefits.

>> Speaker Johnson says.

It's 20 somethings who are living in their parents basements.

It's not veterans, it's what?

Where is the disconnect here?

>> It's spin.

It's a it's a it's a bonafide lie.

He's lying because the single biggest place that there was a change was that now work requirements are for 55 to 64 year olds prior to after 55, there were no more work requirements for anyone.

Now 55 to 64.

They're also going to ask people to demonstrate 80 hours per month worth of work or volunteer service.

And so to say that this is not directly impacting people in that age range, veterans, homeless people is just a flat out lie.

So that's the third place.

And the fourth I would I would highlight is cuts to snap education, which is not benefits to people's in people's pockets.

But this is a huge funding stream that the feds have typically paid for.

Places like Foodlink to hire nutrition educators to teach people how to shop and cook and eat healthy on a budget.

You see us at the public market every Thursday and Saturday teaching those very lessons.

That funding stream has been eliminated, zeroed out in the federal budget.

That's that's 100 plus million dollars.

So you can't say these things aren't cuts because they are.

But if you're Speaker Johnson, who's going to try to save face for tax cuts for billionaires, you can probably find a way to argue that it's not.

>> Well, I mean, look, if you want to call it, it's not a cut.

It's a change to eligibility.

Anybody who has ever worked in a company that's had layoffs would not accept it.

If they said, we're not cutting the workforce, we're just changing the number of people eligible to receive a paycheck.

So just a change in eligibility for the workforce.

Now, those are cuts.

Those are reductions.

That's right.

So I understand that.

But let me also ask you this.

I mean, you you work in city government.

You understand the challenges of different layers of government working together.

And part of what Speaker Johnson is saying is, hey, the states have not properly administered this.

They have to do better and they have to do more.

And we're going to tell them to do more.

So if there's any cuts, blame your state.

Don't blame the federal government.

Now what do you say to that?

>> Well, what's really ironic about this is that they did that with some fidelity as well.

They said, and I have it here somewhere, but the cost sharing is for states who have a payment error rate below 6%.

There's there's no cost share.

So they're saying in theory we are benefiting states with no errors.

And for states that have a pay error rate above 10%, they're saying your cost is going to be 15%, which is, by the way, in New York state, going to be over $1 billion per year.

It's a pretty substantial amount of money.

So you can hear the argument in that and see, okay, I get what they're trying to do in theory, but then they made a carve out because Senator Murkowski was about to vote no on this.

So and Alaska has the single highest payment error rate.

So what they ended up doing was saying, and the language of the bill is here.

If for fiscal year 2025, the payment error rate of a state multiplied by 1.5 is equal to 20%, the implementation date under clause I shall be fiscal year 2029.

So for Alaska to vote for this, they said the states that are the worst at payment at paying get three years before they have to actually implement these rates.

>> As long as they have Republican senators.

>> Correct.

Now, granted, New York is actually lumped in with Alaska on this, so we won't have to see the the the cost share for a couple of years still at this point, which is why we haven't heard any any quick action by the governor's office.

But you can't be Speaker Johnson and argue this is all about waste, fraud and abuse and then say, hey, the single state with the most waste.

We're going to give you three years before you see any ripple effect of this.

>> And voila, the vote from your senator changes.

Bingo.

okay, but let me just play devil's advocate on one other point with Mitch, and I'm going to ask your colleagues about some other aspects of this.

What is wrong with the federal government saying, look, if you have a payment error rate, that high, New York State, Alaska, whoever, get it together and we're going to make you get it together and otherwise you're going to pay.

>> I don't think there's a problem with with that conceptually saying that payment, we want payment error rates to go down.

I will say, and and Whitley or Julia may know more about this than I do, but payment error rates does not always mean they're paying more to people.

It oftentimes means they're just the payments coming on the wrong date.

Sometimes they're paying under what people actually get.

I mean, you probably see stuff like this all the time in a day to day.

So payment error rate is not necessarily waste, fraud or abuse.

Just for clarity.

But sure, you want to say you're not doing the best job of administering the program.

We want to fix that somehow.

Great.

By all means.

But what this is actually all about is it's going to be encouraging some states.

And thank goodness I have I believe it will not be New York State.

Some states will say we don't want to do the cost show we're getting.

We're getting rid of it.

I've heard that Senator Huckabee Sanders is or sorry, Governor Huckabee Sanders is considering not doing the cost share and eliminating Snap benefits for her state.

I'm sure there's other states that are thinking about that, too.

So this is a way not just to to penalize, that kind of waste.

It's a way to get people to just be off of Snap benefits.

>> So as it is with this bill, millions of people will see a reduction or elimination in Snap.

And it could be the downstream effect even more.

Lose it.

And it's not just people gaming the system, living with their parents, refusing to work.

That's what we're hearing from Foodlink.

Although, to be clear, I don't think we know Julia when this would take effect.

Right.

We're still waiting to find out.

>> Yeah, there's some confusion.

We know that Medicaid is not.

Cuts are not slated to take effect until after midterm elections, which is very strategic on their part.

We think that coincidence.

Yeah, just pure coincidence.

Snap cuts will come sooner, but we don't have clarity on that at all.

>> So sometime in the next year, though, we assume.

>> Yeah.

And we're preparing the folks we work with for that.

I just want to go back to real quick, because I think we will end up talking about work requirements more, but I want to talk about the Thrifty Food plan for a second, too, because I think this is this is how we make this relevant to everyone, is that everyone has felt the squeeze on food.

Food prices have increased 24% since 2024.

The cost of food has risen higher than any other good and faster in in this country.

And we feel it.

The last election that's what we talked about was grocery prices.

The thrifty food plan, the changes to it, freezing.

That essentially erodes the value of snap.

So again, when we talk about spin, we are saying, oh, people, you know, it's just people who aren't willing to work who are going to lose it.

But even folks who are meeting all of these current requirements and, and future requirements, the value of those Snap benefits is going to decrease.

And they're already the value of Snap benefits.

It's far beneath what food costs right now.

So a moderately cost, moderately priced meal is about $3.40.

which I think we probably all generally spend more than that snap prices at at about $2.50.

You've heard stories that everyone who's on snap already runs out of those benefits, which is where the emerge every single month, which is where the Emergency Food Network and our work comes in.

So I just wanted to, to, place an emphasis on that, on the damage of not having the thrifty food plan pricing keep pace with the reality of food prices in our country right now.

>> I'm glad you bring this up, because there's one other piece of sound that I think we should listen to, because I think we have to keep the reality versus the Washington rhetoric in sight.

When we look at benefits here, because President Trump was asked by a CBS News reporter about his campaign promises to cut food prices and how that squares with cutting food benefits.

And he pivoted to basically say, well, prices are falling everywhere.

So even if your benefits get cut, everything's cheaper, so everything's better.

Listen to what the president says.

>> You campaigned on lowering the price of groceries.

How can you justify cutting food assistance in this bill?

>> Let me let me just say the cut is going to give everybody much more food because prices are coming way down.

Groceries are down.

Eggs.

You told me about eggs.

You asked me a question about eggs.

My first week.

You said eggs.

I said I just got here.

Tell me about eggs.

And it was going through the roof.

You know that eggs now way down.

Everybody's buying eggs, groceries down.

Energy is down.

Gasoline is now buying.

They're buying gasoline now for $1.99.

When I if you look back you'll see $354.

This country we're going to lose this country.

Our country now is respected all over the world.

All over the world we're respected.

We were a laughingstock.

>> All right, I'm going to let the Foodlink team weigh in on the food prices, food cuts portion.

But just a little fact checking.

There are zero states where gas is under $2.

>> By the way.

>> It's.

And by the way, it's not even close.

It's not like well, it's 2 or 3, the lowest state in the country is Mississippi at 272.

Now, the national average today for a gallon of gas is 313.

That is higher than it was on Inauguration Day.

It is higher than it was in January of 2020.

For the start of President Biden's last year in office.

The president loves to talk about egg prices, which are way down from its peak of over $8, but most other staples are now more expensive.

Milk prices are up, beef is up more than 10%.

Same with chicken.

We could go on.

So there is a lot of nonsense in that response.

About what actually what actually costs what what anything costs.

with the exception of eggs.

He's right about eggs.

So what about this argument?

And let me go around the table, Julia, when the president says, well, you can ask me about cutting food assistance, we can cut snap, but the food prices are going to fall.

So it's going to be better for everybody.

More money in your pocket.

What do you think?

>> I don't have to speak with my Foodlink hat on here.

I just know my grocery bills have not decreased.

But really, the story is just the opposite.

I said a couple times snap is an economic engine, an economic driver.

For every dollar we spend on Snap benefits, it generates somewhere between $1.50 and $1.80 in economic activity.

And a lot of that is in rural communities.

Those are dollars that are spent at rural grocery stores at farmers markets, you name it, that there there is no replacement for feeding America estimates that somewhere around 30,000 rural grocery stores are at risk of closing because of these snap cuts.

That doesn't just affect folks who receive Snap benefits.

It affects every single person in the community.

When they don't have a grocery store there.

It also affects farmers.

It affects everyone employed in that sector.

So we are driving people into poverty.

We are doing the opposite of decreasing food prices.

When we think about the damage that we're doing to farmers and to the food sector in general.

So I don't think we've seen any of that become a reality.

And I don't I don't think that we will.

>> when it comes to the price of food there, I mean, we heard a lot wrong from the president, but what do you see as the reality right now?

I mean, Julia's talking about food prices going up, grocery bills are going up.

it's hard to stretch a dollar.

What are you seeing from the people you're working with?

>> that.

I mean, unthinkable sacrifices are being made, you know, people.

People are making choices that affect their health very directly.

Right?

You're we, so our team, our benefit navigation team provides free and confidential one on one help applying for the Snap program.

and in that interaction with people, we have really difficult conversations.

It's not just as black and white as, you know.

evaluating your income and your household circumstances and telling you whether or not you qualify.

We make real connections with people we have lived, experience taking, you know, taking part in these programs, which have helped hardworking Americans.

supplement, by the way, not completely fund their household food budget, but supplement their food budget so that they can move on and prosper.

but anyway, when folks aren't eligible or if it's not enough, we connect them with other resources that can help them maximize their their spending budgets.

And the reality is, is that people who, you know, as difficult as it is, as hesitant as they might be to ask for this assistance folks in the middle class are now finding themselves more willing to, reach out for help.

When, a couple of years prior, they weren't.

I mean, they're just expressing to our team and to and many of our partner agencies that assist with this work that it's just more difficult to, to stay healthy.

Right?

It's becoming even more intimidating to be shopping nutritiously and then also keeping in mind your budget because it's very stressful.

So it's just very hard to hear a rhetoric that makes people even more overwhelmed than they already are, you know?

So it's just it's a lot of misinformation.

>> before I grab Chris's phone call, Chris, hang there for one second.

let me just ask Mitch Gruber.

a little bit about the work of convincing politicians about this.

And my understanding is you've been meeting with politicians, probably a lot of different backgrounds, but Republicans who voted for this bill and are making these claims, have you had success in getting in the room with them?

>> Yes.

And before I answer that question, I want to add one other thing to what Julian Whitley said.

one of the things that's most distressing about household budgets with this is that we in this community in particular, have done an incredible job of helping people leverage their Snap dollars to to have even more bang for the buck.

So at the public market, anyone can go to the market, use their use their EBT card, get Snap tokens and double it due to various state and federal programs.

Our curbside market, which is the biggest mobile farmer's market in the state, has a full 1 to 1 match with the Double Up Food Box program.

We're going to talk to Levine in a in a short amount of time.

One of our most loyal curbside market followers, customers and ambassadors.

She's done a remarkable job in getting people to use their benefits on healthy food.

We've done all this work.

And then to remove people's benefits when they're using it.

Exactly the way people are advising them to use it on healthy food.

Leverage it.

Find ways to to to double up, maximize and then to see cuts happen at that point is devastating for this community, for people who have worked so hard to deal with what are very complicated household budgets.

in terms of your question, I will say this.

We have had a lot of conversations with Congress member Morelle.

and locally, we've been talking a lot with the county executive, the mayor, the entire DHS team really trying to think about what happens when the work requirements are rolled out and how can we collectively work together to make sure that people at least have the option of finding ways to maintain their benefits with those work requirements?

Remember, I don't know what Speaker Johnson thinks, but in Rochester, New York, there aren't just a million jobs for people to go work 80 hours a month for folks who have, some type of disability or who are, or who are homeless or who are age 55 to 64, there's a lot of really challenging things for us to consider, and we have a great group of people working around a round table here to talk about that.

We also were able to, do something that I think very few nonprofits in our community have been able to do, and that's make significant inroads to having conversations with Congress member Claudia Tenney.

The New York 24 Foodlink covers a ten county service area, and eight of our ten counties are actually in NY 24.

And this was a recently redistricted area.

And so, Congressman Brittany, I don't think had much opportunity to get to know many of the counties that we serve, which is basically everything that abuts the city of Rochester.

And we were able to have an in-district event with her a few weeks ago that we titled Faith and Farmers Roundtable, where we had faith communities and agricultural producers who live in her district.

Talk about the impact of these cuts.

>> On their farmers.

>> there are a number of farmers who are very concerned at its most basic, if you take away people's purchasing power and you're a farmer who's trying to sell food, it's not good for you.

I mean, you want people to have more money to be able to buy food.

It's just not a good thing.

I think Julia's point about the rural grocery stores, it's the same conversation as the rural hospitals.

There's a big concern now that these very fragile places in rural communities are going to close, and a lot of farmers are concerned about that.

We also had one farmer who just talked about the impact of tariffs.

He's a grain producer in Yates County and talked about the impact of tariffs that he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business because some of his Canadian and Italian purchasers no longer wanted to do business with him.

So these are all concerns that people are having in the ag sector as well.

And we were able to have a really meaningful conversation with Congresswoman Brittany.

There's a couple of follow ups that we hope that that she follows through on.

And I will tell you that I can't say that I agreed with the way that she, framed a lot of why she voted, the way that she voted, but it was an honest conversation, and there were some things that she offered to follow up on that I hope will be impactful to the people of this community.

>> Does she acknowledge that there this bill contains cuts to snap?

>> she specifically refuted the word cuts and talked about them as, as changes to eligibility requirements.

And, and our point was you can call them whatever you want to call them.

There are people we were in Canandaigua at the time.

There are people who are in this community who currently have Snap benefits.

It's a lifeline for them.

And whenever this bill takes effect, they will no longer have Snap benefits.

You can call that whatever you want.

I'd call that a cut.

>> okay.

And does she acknowledge that it's not just people gaming the system, living in their parents basements?

>> I don't know, Julia.

What would you say to that?

>> I don't know that she acknowledged it, but she listened.

I'd say as we went around the table and she heard testimonials from people that do this work every single day that that give food to families that show up.

And they they talked about those families.

And, you know, mothers, the young children.

Turning to the food pantry for the very first time.

So I think she got to hear real life examples of how this this is not a bunch of 20 year olds in their basement.

I just want to say something about work requirements, too.

I mean, obviously.

We don't think they'll work here for a number of reasons.

There's significant challenges, but there's also data to show that work requirements do not increase employment, do not increase wages.

They decrease access to Snap, meaning they increase hunger for our communities.

And they do nothing on the positive side of of improving or increasing employment in any single area.

So the purpose, the driving force behind that, which is to, you know, help make sure people I'm sure are self-sufficient and we have a strong workforce.

They've been proven over and over that it doesn't work.

I think the latest study, and it was in the New York Times, was out of out of Arkansas showing that these just don't yield the benefit that folks think they will.

>> There's probably, in the eyes of legislators, a moral component to that saying, this goes back, certainly goes back before the 90s, but certainly in the 90s when President Clinton championed welfare to work and was able to cross the aisle with a lot of Republicans and a lot of people on the political right, were applauding a Democratic president for talking about work requirements for welfare.

there's this idea that if you're getting a benefit from a taxpayer, you ought to be maximizing whatever you're doing to possibly make yourself self-sufficient.

That's kind of a moral argument.

How do you see that?

>> Yeah, I believe in the dignity of work.

I understand the premise of that.

But what actually works and we know that job creation programs are a lot more successful in getting people into gainful employment and careers than cutting their access to food, which essentially cuts off their ability to be productive members of society and productive contributors to work.

So I think it has the opposite effect of intended and, but but I don't think anyone would argue with the dignity of work.

And I think most people want to find employment to support themselves and their families.

>> And one of the great myths about Snap, aka food stamps, is that it's it's an urban it's a program that supports urban communities predominantly or exclusively.

It is a it is a program that supports people in rural communities, suburban, urban in New York, 24, which is an entirely rural district.

There are no cities.

I mean, there are some urban centers, some urban areas in terms of Batavia, Canandaigua, et cetera., but it's a rural district exclusively.

There are 83,000 people, actually 84,000 people who utilize Snap benefits.

Now, when you think about rural communities and work requirements, places that oftentimes have no public transportation, not not poor public, literally no public transportation, and you're someone who income qualifies.

But now you have to figure out how to get to a a job or a volunteer site that is 30 minutes away because you live in a very sparsely populated part of the of the district.

How are you supposed to achieve that?

It's it's not.

The dignity of work is one thing, but the logistics of how this actually operates as a whole, another.

And the Arkansas example shows that what it does is it removes people from getting benefits that are a lifeline to them.

>> I just want to add one more layer onto this.

We haven't talked about the overlap, the sort of double whammy of 12 million Americans stand to lose both their Medicaid and their Snap.

And for those folks, when you think about work requirements, again, little to no access to food and no health care benefits, how is someone supposed to be prepared to show up and not just show up to their job, but apply and be hired and be you know, learn a new a new trade or a new, new industry.

It's near impossible.

>> Patrick emails to say cuts in Snap and Medicaid would lead to more theft and more incarceration in this country.

as Patrick's conclusion.

>>, ultimately more desperation, which I think is what you what you hear, what you will hear, you know, when Whitley is talking to people in this community, in these closed door confidential conversations, what you're hearing in people's voices, desperation.

And that's right.

Now, even before these cuts have taken into effect.

>> That's right.

I mean, you want to hear a very real example to our point about, you know, snap being characterized as only something that's able to available to those in urban areas.

client imagine being 62.

You work about 15 hours a week.

What's available to you in that area.

And you have limited mobility.

I mean, if there was no availability of you know, jobs or workforce programs to fill in that that new gap, that person's just simply going to lose their snap benefits.

>> I am seeing you've lit up the phone boards here.

And so here's what we're going to do.

Let's take our only break.

We're going to come back.

Chris.

Robert, if you're on the phones, we're going to take your phone calls.

We're going to talk to Levine.

Ford who?

as the team from Foodlink mentioned, is someone who really knows the impact of snap.

We're trying to make it as clear as we can journalistically what's actually going on with snap with food assistance with the program that is utilized by millions of Americans as a result of the so-called big Beautiful Bill and the team from Foodlink is here.

Julia Tedesco the CEO Mitch Gruber, the Foodlink Chief Impact Officer, Whitley Hasty Foodlink, Benefits Navigation manager.

Your phone calls and more.

On the other side of this break.

Coming up in our second hour, President Trump has said he can fire whoever he wants because he's the president and he decides what just caused is no matter what the courts have said before him, well, we're going to talk about what that means when it comes to democratic norms.

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There is a trend going that way.

And we'll talk about what it means when you only have loyalists serving in government.

That's next.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

if you're on the phone, thanks for waiting.

Let me just grab a couple of those calls, and then we're going to bring in Levine on the phone here.

Robert in Fairport.

Hey, Robert, go ahead.

>> Yeah.

Thanks for taking my call.

Hey, the number one product purchase with food stamps under the Snap program is carbonated soft drinks they account for, I don't know, something like 10 billion a yearly spending some huge amount, 10% of the snap budget actually goes to purchasing these soft drinks.

the problem with snap is the program just gargantuan.

It's too big.

It's poorly managed.

And, you know, the fact is that Snap stands for I think the N stands for nutrition.

I'm not really getting the nutrition part there.

I know that we're here in Rochester, New York.

We have some of the finest tap water in the country.

it's practically free.

>> Robert, thank you for the phone call.

So Robert thinks that the waste includes carbonated beverages, and that's a worthy thing to cut.

Anyone want to jump in on that?

>> Yeah.

We've been I've been on this show.

How many times over the last decade talking to you, Evan, about about proposals to ban soda with snap benefits.

Yeah.

I mean, look, if if that's a conversation, I would love to have a deeper philosophical conversation about.

But the solution to not letting people buy soda is not cutting people from the program.

That's not the solution.

The solution is not saying if you're a 55 year old veteran, you don't have to work 80 hours in order to get Snap benefits.

That doesn't solve the issue of soda that that the caller.

>> Robert, says just make soda ineligible as a Snap program.

>> And some states are considering doing that.

And if that's a conversation states want to have, I would have an opinion about it.

I'm happy to share what it is.

I'm sure Whitley and Julia do too, but that's not even what's on the table right now.

It's just taking money out of people's pockets.

>> anybody want to add anything there on the soda question?

>> I'll just say that we also do we do the work of, you know, it's hard to keep up right with.

I mean, I'm not going to argue about about soda, but it's it's hard to eat on a budget and eat healthy.

And we do the work of making sure that we have programs that serve Snap eligible people to help them navigate that.

But I would just agree with Mitch that we can debate that.

Still not an argument for cutting benefits to children and elders and veterans and you name it, right?

>> Telling telling people what to buy with their, you know, their food budgets is a lot different conversation than just taking away money to help them buy food.

It's just not a lot of good evidence that it's a way to reduce fraud.

>> All right.

Let me get back to your phone calls.

Chris has been waiting in Geneva.

Hey, Chris.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

I just wanted to let you know that I've watched the food distributions from Foodlink for the last couple of years in the Finger Lakes area.

Canandaigua, Geneva, and points south.

And you have a couple real heroes in that studio with you, Julia and Mitch are public public servants who can hear you.?

>> Yeah.

Come on.

Chris, go ahead.

>> We haven't met.

>> No, no, no.

>> They they they really have are delivering to not just snap, but beyond snap.

We we walk, I walk the lines of the food distributions that they supply.

And people are making choices between cancer drugs and food.

So mostly elderly out in the rural areas.

And it's it's phenomenal work.

And it pays off because we have enough food.

And when we get it to people who are fighting illness and needing health, it's it's got a multiplier effect that's far better than most.

Most government supplies of anything.

So we need to really fight on this front.

We've got thousands of people out here in the rural country that not just supply.

Reply on depend on snap, but on a humane distribution of the excess that we have in this country of food for people.

So I applaud Foodlink public servants of the highest order, and we need to keep them going.

>> Chris, let me just ask you a brief question.

as you say, you want to keep fighting on this issue.

And Mitch made an important point.

There is a stereotype about Snap that it's an urban program, and the reality is it is a millions upon millions of Americans program.

And very much utilized in impoverished rural communities across the country, which tend to be very red politically, which supports the cutting of this kind of benefit.

What is the dissonance you see there?

And do you think that there is a way in talking to elected officials who maybe who voted for some of these cuts to see some of that?

Do you think that that is being noticed, being absorbed?

>> I don't know, that's why I admire Mitch and Julia so much, because they keep their spirits up.

I'm drawn down by the fact that the many, bumper stickers I see in our own food lines say things like, take your hands off my medic, keep your government hands off my Medicare, and these while they're taking food delivered by Foodlink through a variety of charitable ways.

I think I go door to door in the cars to try and build a database for the rural areas so we can communicate with the hungry.

>> Oh, I lost you, Chris.

I'm sorry we lost Chris on that call.

But, Chris, I appreciate you.

Go ahead.

Mitch.

>> Just one point.

Chris said that we have enough food, that we have enough food.

Chris.

participates in the Boys and Girls Club in Geneva.

Is a is a great partner.

We did not pay him to say such nice things.

>> About us.

>> the the the challenge that we have that I think we haven't kind of highlighted quite yet.

And I know we're already running out of time, which is crazy.

Foodlink distributes 25 million pounds of food a year right now.

16 years ago, when our current CEO started, we were distributing 8 million pounds of food a year.

We've tripled in size, and that's not a good thing.

These are not good numbers.

To triple in.

The need has grown, and our ability to source and procure and distribute food has grown.

What I think people don't quite understand is that every single thing about what we do is a supplement to snap people.

No one chooses to use a food pantry over buying food with money in their pocket.

Everybody prefers to be able to have the dignity of buying food first, and so we tend to see spiked numbers every month at the end of the month as benefits run out for people.

We have no idea what the impact on our food bank numbers are going to be.

When these cuts go into effect, and there is a there is a time where we can't just have infinite growth.

Our literally our facility, the amount of food that we can find, it is not infinite.

And there is a huge challenge here that food banks are the ones who are going to shoulder the burden when these snap cuts go into effect.

>> And there's there's no source for this food other than purchasing it.

when I started, well, under half $1 million a year was our budget for purchase food.

This year, we'll spend more than $12 million.

And if we can raise raise the the dollars, we'll probably spend millions more than that.

If we have the opportunity, because the need will be there.

And that's all.

That's all that we can do is raise as much money as we can, purchase as much food as we can, but it won't even begin to touch the amount of food and support that Snap provides to families.

>> I want to bring in Levine Ford, who's been waiting to join the conversation.

Levine leads the tenants association.

that is very familiar with snap.

And not only relies in many ways upon snap, but Levine does a lot of work.

my understanding, Mitch, to help educate her fellow tenants about using snap, making good, healthy decisions, leveraging those kind of dollars.

And Levine is with us now, I believe.

Hey, Levine, can you hear us?

>> Yes, I can, can you hear me?

>> I can hear you.

Well, it's lovely to have you.

Why don't you just describe a little bit about your relationship with Foodlink?

And, some of the, the work that you've done in the tenants association there?

Levine.

>> I am a fool.

curbside market ambassador for Keyla Park Apartments.

And one thing that we have concentrated on is having agency and to do our heart healthy diets, diets for diabetics, as well as we do blood pressure as well.

And with good about the snap benefits as and our curbside, they will give out food demonstrations as well as recipes and to our shoppers ages 55 to 64.

They actually use their snap benefits to purchase these healthy foods to make at their home.

And not only is that a good thing, the other good thing about it is they're going to the doctor.

The blood pressure is down, their glucose level is down, their heart is a lot healthier, and they actually purchased from our curbside market on a regular basis.

I try to concentrate on healthy agencies coming in to do things, because this is healthy.

Number one, for the shoppers as well as our tenants.

And guess what?

It's not a long term burden.

And the medical health system, if you have a healthy diet, then you have a healthy body.

>> Well, Levine, I know, you know, there's limits to what we all understand about what could change with with snap.

And we don't know exactly what is, how that's going to play out or when we're talking about some of what we understand that is in this new bill.

So I can't ask you exactly what happens to all of your fellow tenants.

I just want to ask you, generally, is there concern about what is coming?

Is there concern about the effect?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

>> People I'm sorry.

They're very, very concerned.

Especially our 55 year olds to 64.

The working poor.

They're not just sitting home waiting for the snap to come up on their cards.

They're concerned about losing their benefits with snap.

And they're not going to be able to eat.

And we have about five veterans that shop every Wednesday.

And they're very, very concerned.

How are they going to feed themselves healthy food if they cut the snap benefits, which is really kind of like a crime as far as I'm concerned.

>> And Levine, members of Congress who voted for this bill, would probably say that the people you're talking about need to work more.

They need to get jobs.

What do you think?

>> Well.

>> I think that if you're between the ages of 55 and 64, as my late mother would say, you served your time working.

So many people are disabled and they still work a few hours to subsidize their income.

Some of the trends which we have, one that comes every week, he does have neither leg.

I don't cross that line and ask him to lose it.

And in the service.

But he comes on a regular basis to purchase all our healthy foods.

And as far as working, yes, there are some people that abuse the system.

But you know what?

They're in the minority.

You don't punish a whole group of people due to the fact that a few people are abusing the system.

>> before I let you go, Levine.

Mitch, I know you know Levine well.

And frankly, everyone at the table with Foodlink probably knows Levine.

And many people like Levine.

what do you see about when it comes to the communication that your organization is going to have to do just to make sure people understand what's coming?

And what are you hear in Levine and her concern and the tenants concern?

>> Yeah.

One of our greatest assets at Foodlink is our curbside market ambassadors.

Actually, we're sitting in the room with one of them.

That's how Whitley first first joined the Foodlink team, was having a similar role to Levine at a different curbside market site.

And these folks are people who blood, sweat and tears are out there trying to make sure that their neighbors are eating healthier.

And we've seen so much success.

And to have those people lose their purchasing power is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

I don't know if you have any thoughts about that.

>> Yeah.

I think our job now here at Foodlink and then working, you know.

Hi, Levine.

Working closely.

Good.

Working closely with, you know, strong leaders in the community who you know, connect folks to us.

We have this loop of you know, warm handoff referral system.

So it's our job now is to make sure that the process now is less burdensome for folks just to meet these new requirements.

You know, we can definitely talk for a long time about how immoral and unfair all of this is.

But Foodlink is going to show up and we're going to make sure that if we need to prove that folks are either eligible or exempt for the the right to have a dignity and purchasing food, that's what we're going to do.

>> So.

And let me add one more thing about Levine said, because, you know, for the for the the gentleman she was talking about who has a clear disability and would not be able to work if there was a Republican Congress member sitting here, they would say that person certainly still has their exemptions.

And that's true.

I'm not going to dispute that.

The problem is, and this is the article that Julie is referencing from Arkansas, the administrative burden is just going to be massive.

It is so ironic that the Republican administration that started the Department of Government Efficiency to remove administrative bloat is now asking each county in New York State to develop a new system, to be able to recertify that gentleman over and over and over again.

And if somehow, some way that recertification gets missed, there could be a devastating consequence.

You know, we are very fortunate in Monroe County to have Commissioner Thalia.

Right.

Deputy Commissioner Denise Reed, these are two of the two staunch advocates for making Snap an effective program, and I'm not going to speak for them.

But I will tell you that that I know with certainty there is major concern from them and their counterparts across the state.

How do we staff this new administrative nightmare of being able to certify and recertify people all the time?

>> I want to thank Levine for making the time.

good luck to you, Levine.

And I know we'll be in touch as, as more of this plays out.

Thank you for for joining the program today.

>> Thanks, Levine.

>> Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Mitch.

Thank you.

Julie.

By Whitley.

>> Let me try to get Peter and Colin who've been waiting and be real tight on the phones here.

We've had a lot of feedback.

Peter and Rochester keep it tight.

Go ahead.

Peter.

>> Good afternoon.

I want to reiterate the importance of the people like myself who were affected by COVID.

And couldn't work.

Can't work?

I was a very productive part of society as a barber.

I actually cut Julia's father's hair and.

great haircut.

>> He doesn't have any hair left.

>> That right.

and I lost everything.

I have to go on.

I had to go on disability.

I relied on Medicaid and snap.

I get disability of $1,900, and my rent is 1200, and I have bills.

Terrified.

Absolutely terrified.

>> About these cuts.

>> You're talking.

>> Thank you.

Yeah.

>> Oh, absolutely.

>> Yeah.

Peter, thank you for the phone call.

I mean, that lines up the uncertainty and that worry is what you've been hearing.

Whitley talk about.

Frankly, the whole team talk about.

>> And that's what people need to hear, is the reality, the lived, the lived experience of these cuts.

>> Peter, thank you.

And let me grab Colin and Geneva, who's also been waiting.

Hi, Colin.

Go ahead.

>> Hi, Evan.

Thank you.

so, Reverend Colin Pritchard, I'm pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Geneva, and I was privileged to be in that conversation with Congresswoman Tenney.

and just wanted to highlight that one of the pieces that was brought up in that space separate from a lack of knowledge of some of the regional realities, which was a learning curve for her, and I hope follows through and that learning does happen.

but was also the reality that faith communities and other kind of not for profit structures don't have the capacity to fill the gap.

And there are some presumptions that, well, well-meaning folk will simply fill in the gaps if government steps out.

and the capacity and financial realities don't match up for that possibility.

So if it is lost from an oversight governmental level, it will be fully lost.

There will only be some covering by faith communities and other well-meaning folks benevolence and those kinds of pieces.

philanthropy and those kinds of pieces.

But it simply will never fully catch up the gap if it is removed from a governmental and societal priority.

>> Pastor, thank you for the for the phone call.

And that is a very important point to kind of end on here, because as we close the point that the pastor is making is, I think really key here, because people are going to be wondering, well, can Foodlink fill this gap?

So these cuts will come, but we got Foodlink.

I mean, people know that Foodlink it's a huge name in this community, but part of what Colin is saying is, you know, Julia, he loves you.

You can't do it all.

>> Yeah.

>> Is that fair?

>> That's right.

The philanthropic sector can't fill the gap.

The nonprofit sector can't.

And, you know, shout out we had multiple partners call today, but we don't do our work without hundreds of community based agencies.

Meal programs, soup kitchens, pantries that are serving people on a daily basis.

And they will continue to operate and probably extend their hours and will do everything to get more food to them.

But it will not fill the gap.

>> And it's also not where people want to be first.

Everyone who runs a good food pantry, a good a good community kitchen understands they are filling the gap and they're going to keep doing that with dignity and the best they can.

What people want is to go to the store and buy food.

Let me make one.

I hear my the walk off music.

Go for it.

One pitch.

If anyone.

Those stories that Peter shared, that Colin shared, we we want to collect stories.

We are going to be an engine for advocacy on reinstating food stamps.

Snap benefits in the right and best way, preserving benefits, preserving school lunch.

Please get in touch with us.

You can contact us at info at Foodlink.

Org it'll go to the right place.

Tell us that you want to be involved in some advocacy, and we're going to loop you in.

>> Let me also say, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney is invited on this program.

anybody who voted for or against this bill invited on this program, let's keep talking about this in ways that illuminate that.

Don't confuse that.

Shine the light on what's actually happening.

Julia Tedesco Whitley Hasty Mitch Gruber from Foodlink.

Thank you all for being here this hour.

>> Thank you, thank you, thank you.

>> More Connections coming up.

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