Teresa Leger Fernández Speaks with the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute
On Friday, October 3, the USDA issued a memo directing agencies to implement the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) approved in July as part of the One, Big Beautiful Bill. The changes must be in place by November 1st—-a rushed timeline that raises concerns about bureaucratic errors and potential service gaps that could leave families without the food assistance they depend on.
On Tuesday, October 7, Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández visited the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market to hear directly from farmers, vendors, and shoppers affected by these changes. She also spoke with the Institute about what those who benefit from SNAP can expect and how lawmakers are working to protect them. The conversation below has been edited for clarity and readability.
SFFMI: One question the Institute has gotten a lot at our info booth at the Farmers’ Market is: what can people expect to happen on November 1st? Will EBT cards simply stop working? Does anyone know yet?
Teresa Leger Fernández: What we hope is that we will be able to work out something with the Republicans. We have asked that these problems be fixed as a condition of funding the government. Because you cannot just say, ‘we’re going to fund the government with all the cuts and all the pain to food, nutrition, and health.’ And so, the sad thing is, we can’t answer that. We are hoping that we will get some Republican senators who will agree with us that these are things that need to be fixed. It’s not just about an individual. Because when you have an unhealthy individual, it affects everybody in that community. And being hungry is not healthy. Health and hunger are connected. We will also work with the state, because the state has stepped up. In the absence of funding from the federal government, the state just passed some laws that address the nutrition program. And that goes into effect immediately. The issue there is it only lasts until June 30th. So, it’s a temporary solution. And so, I believe the state will be sending some stuff out. And we’ll work with them to get you some of that information sooner rather than later.
That leads me to my next question: What can Congress do? What can the state do? What can anyone do to help the people we serve (in the case of our organization, both our farmers and our families) to be able to mitigate the damage these cuts might do?
The great thing about the state of New Mexico is it recognized that the cuts that the Republicans had pushed through and their big, beautiful bill that is not beautiful, but is very harmful to families and communities, that it would have a significant impact on New Mexico.
And I am so proud of the state legislature for stepping up and passing a short-term funding bill to address the nutrition cuts and to address some of the worst of the health care. But the state can’t make up for the federal funding.
And that’s why the feds have always done this, because they recognize that a healthy community, that nutrition and poverty should not be something that we accept. We are a wealthy enough nation that we can address nutrition, poverty, hunger, and health issues and still provide for a functioning government. That has been the case since the Great Depression. We do not want to see the kind of soup lines that existed, but for some reason the Republicans are willing to send us into that chaos and send us into that dark time again. We are hoping that we will get three or four Republicans who will say this is not acceptable. And we are getting them saying that. Hopefully we’ll get them to vote with the Democrats. And I hate to put it in this partisan way, but that really is the issue is we need a handful of Republicans to join the Democrats in a bipartisan effort to provide the nutrition and health programs that our communities need.
The most confusing thing about the planned cuts is that SNAP is a successful program. It generates $1.80 in economic activity for every $1 spent. And so what was the rationale for taking this away? It seems that the cuts would take from the community and take from the economy.
I do not understand it. The reason that they took these benefits away, that they cut nutrition funding and health funding was in order to give the tax credits to the billionaires and millionaires. We challenged them on that because we said that’s not the right thing to do– to take money from working class people and give it to those who don’t need it: the billionaires and millionaires. They believe that was an important thing to do. They believe that the billionaires and millionaires create economic activity. But we know that actually the economic activity is done by farmers and done at the local level. So, once again, because we do not agree with their philosophy, we are trying to change their minds. But the way we change their minds is for people to reach out to me. I love hearing from people about these issues. But also if you know somebody who lives in Iowa or Indiana or Arizona, reach out to those congressional leaders as well. Because I think it’s really important that the public make their voices heard. Because remember, in our Constitution, it is the people who have the power. So the people need to express themselves in whatever way they can, showing up at rallies and protests, writing to their congresspeople, writing to Republican congresspeople if they happen to live in their district. Because it is the people’s voice that will, in the end, change these policies, which are harmful to rural communities in every state, whether they are represented by a Republican or a Democrat.