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The Trump administration is quietly pursuing a regulatory change that would strip federal nutrition assistance from an estimated 6 million low-income Americans — including nearly two million children — as it spends billions on an illegal, open-ended war on Iran that has killed more than a thousand people and plunged the global economy into chaos.

The change sought by the US Department of Agriculture would curb broad-based categorical eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to automatically qualify residents for SNAP if they are already enrolled in other aid programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, thus reducing administrative hurdles and costs.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimated in a blog post published late last month — the day before President Donald Trump announced the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran — that gutting broad-based categorical eligibility would likely strip modest federal food aid from around 6 million people, including nearly 2 million children.

“The people losing access to food assistance from SNAP, school meals, and [the Women, Infants, and Children Program] would mainly be working families, older adults, and people with disabilities,” the think tank noted. “In other words, the change would primarily harm groups that federal and state policymakers from across the political spectrum have long sought to help: people who work but are living near poverty; older adults and people with disabilities with low, fixed incomes; and people trying to build modest savings in order to become more economically independent.”

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that restricting broad-based categorical eligibility would result in roughly $11 billion in savings over a 10-year period — or just over $1 billion a year.

Attorneys General Sue Trump for Using Shutdown to Disrupt Food Aid for Millions

The Trump administration is currently spending around $1 billion per day in US taxpayer money waging war on Iran — a price tag that would be enough to cover the daily costs of SNAP benefits for the more than 40 million Americans on the program.

Over just the first two days of the military onslaught, the Pentagon “burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions,” according to figures reported late Monday by the Washington Post.

“Americans can’t afford their groceries, they can’t afford their medicine, they can’t afford the cost of living, and yet we’re dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems, every day in Iran,” US Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a CNN appearance on Monday.

During Trump’s first White House term, his administration proposed a rule that would have curtailed states’ option to use broad-based categorical eligibility for SNAP, but the rule was never finalized and the Biden administration later rescinded it.

The Trump Agriculture Department revived the effort late last year, submitting a rule purportedly aimed at ensuring that “categorical eligibility is extended only to households that have sufficiently demonstrated eligibility.”

“The end result,” CBPP’s Katie Bergh recently warned, “will be more hunger and hardship.”

The Trump administration’s new push comes months after the president signed into law the largest SNAP cuts in US history — around $187 billion over the next decade.

Trump bragged about the cuts during his State of the Union address last month, declaring that his administration has “lifted 2.4 million Americans” off SNAP — a euphemistic description of kicking people off the critical anti-poverty program.

Last week, Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee advanced a farm bill that would do nothing to mitigate the reverberating impacts of the Trump-GOP SNAP cuts.

“Instead of prioritizing the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans, the committee failed to reverse course and continued down a path that will strip food from the tables of children, veterans, caregivers, older adults, and people experiencing homelessness,” said Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center.

Holding Trump accountable for his illegal war on Iran

The devastating American and Israeli attacks have killed hundreds of Iranians, and the death toll continues to rise.

As independent media, what we do next matters a lot. It’s up to us to report the truth, demand accountability, and reckon with the consequences of U.S. militarism at this cataclysmic historical moment.

Trump may be an authoritarian, but he is not entirely invulnerable, nor are the elected officials who have given him pass after pass. We cannot let him believe for a second longer that he can get away with something this wildly illegal or recklessly dangerous without accountability.

We ask for your support as we carry out our media resistance to unchecked militarism. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation to Truthout.

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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep.

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