RENSSELAER — Republicans in Washington are looking at making major changes to the SNAP and Medicaid programs as they work to cut the cost of running the federal government — changes that Sen. Charles E. Schumer says would devastate needy families and those most at risk of hunger or sickness.

At a press conference in the city of Rensselaer, just across the Hudson River from Albany, Schumer, D-N.Y., stood with faith leaders, community organizers and food bank executives to demand that Congress continue to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food aid to millions of Americans and Medicaid, the federally sponsored health insurance program for single mothers, the elderly and the disabled.

“Food insecurity is on the rise, and experts say it’s going to get a lot worse,” Schumer said. “Some of that is due to the rising costs of inflation, we all know about the food costs, but a lot of it is due to bad policies, which are going to make it harder to feed hungry families.”

Schumer said the situation is already bad for many people who are food-insecure. The Trump administration, through its so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has cut the amount of food shipped to food banks across the country through Department of Agriculture programs. The Food Bank of Northeastern New York, for example, representing the Capitol Region and the eastern north country, has had 27 trucks of food canceled, with more cuts planned to future deliveries.

“One million pounds of fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, and guess where most of it comes from? New York farms. New York farmers supply this,” Schumer said.

In the western North Country, which is supplied by the Food Bank of Central New York, the impact of federal food funding cuts is also being felt.

“This has been going on for a couple of months now,” said Karen Belcher, CEO of the Food Bank of Central New York. “In late March, early April we started to see that there were cuts to USDA Foods, which are the federal commodities that come through the Farm Bill.”

Belcher said that the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement, which funds the New York Food for New York Families program, was not renewed for a second cycle for its contract, cutting about $2 million for the food bank. And now, federal authorities are looking at cutting CCC, or Commodity Credit Corp., funding as well. That program changes depending on the priorities of the administration in large part, Belcher said.

But the impact of these moves is a cut to funding for hungry people. Belcher said her organization has lost 15 truckloads of food from the USDA expected between April 1 and July 1.

“That hurts, because we already had a plan in place for our regular commodities that were coming in, and the CCC, so we have been light on USDA product because we tailored it for everything to work together,” Belcher said. “We already have our orders in, we can’t change it now and ask for them sooner.”

Belcher noted that the Trump administration has boosted funding for “bonus” commodities like grapes, fruit and nuts.

“But that doesn’t 100% make up for some of those lean proteins we had coming in through USDA,” she said. “At least it’s something.”

Schumer said on top of those already realized cuts to food aid through community food pantries, now the administration is seeking to cut $230 billion from the SNAP program, which gives low-income Americans a limited amount of money to work with each month to pay for fresh food at grocery stores.

“The House is unveiling the specifics of their plan this week, but they’ve already said what it is going to do,” Schumer said. “It’s the largest cut to SNAP in all of American history. All of American history. It’s as backwards as it gets, stealing SNAP, taking food away from the hungry to pay for Donald Trump’s tax cuts.”

At the same time, Republicans are eyeing somewhere around $880 billion in Medicaid cuts, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., saying last week that his party intends to keep the program running, but on a potentially smaller scale.

“Our true and honest intention is to ensure that every Medicaid beneficiary who is in that traditional community of folks, we’re talking about young pregnant mothers and the elderly, disabled, that those folks are covered and nobody loses their coverage,” Johnson said last week.

Schumer said the only way to push back on this plan is to get in touch with the seven House Republicans who represent New York in Congress and urge them not to vote for the cuts to Medicaid or SNAP.

“We’re calling on our New York House Republicans to block this bill,” Schumer said. “In this region, it’s Congresswoman Stefanik. Is she going to stand for this?”

When reached for comment, Wendell Husebo, a spokesperson for Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, said that her past support of food programs, especially for kids, is clear, although the statement did not address the House GOP proposals or Medicaid.

“As Congresswoman Stefanik has delivered for over a decade, she is committed to continuing to ensure that New York school children have access to nutritious food,” he said. “Chuck Schumer is politically in free-fall as the least popular incumbent Democrat in New York state. No amount of desperate fear mongering will save Chuck Schumer from continuing to tank his approval rating.”

A spokesperson for Rep. Claudia L. Tenney, R-Cleveland, said their office is continuing to review language regarding the Medicaid and SNAP proposals and wasn’t prepared to comment.