Gina Hinojosa Calls on Gov. Greg Abbott to Cover Texas SNAP Recipients

3.5 million Texans—including 1.7 million Texas children—will go hungry if Abbott doesn’t take action by Nov. 1.

Austin, TX — Today, Rep. Gina Hinojosa, candidate for Texas Governor, called on Gov. Greg Abbott to provide bridge funding for the 3.5 million Texans—and 1.7 million Texas children—whose SNAP benefits are set to stop paying out on Saturday, Nov. 1.

“Thanks to politics as usual in Washington D.C., SNAP benefits are about to run out for 3.5 million Texans—including 1.7 million Texas children. Greg Abbott has the money in our state’s Rainy Day Fund to stop children from going without food. It is his moral responsibility to announce that the state government will cover these benefits today. No Texas child should go hungry because of Greg Abbott’s failure to act,” said Rep. Hinojosa.

The “Rainy Day Fund,” a savings account created to prevent sudden cuts to state services, currently contains a surplus of almost $25 billion. Republican governors in Louisiana, Virginia, New Hampshire, and West Virginia have already taken action to protect children and working families in their states while Greg Abbott has failed to act. Earlier this year, Abbott vetoed a bipartisan measure that would have protected millions of Texas school children from food insecurity.

For more information, visit www.ginafortexas.com. 

###

Gina Hinojosa is a native Texan, born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. She never planned on running for office, but when her son’s school was threatened for closure by state budget cuts she rallied parents, won a seat on the school board, and kept the school open. But neighborhood schools kept closing across the state because Republican leaders kept diverting money from them, so she ran for the Texas House of Representatives and helped win more than $11 billion in school funding, reduced standardized testing, and gave raises to teachers. 

Growing up in the Valley, Gina learned an important early lesson from her grandmother: ”No te dejes.” Fight back. And now she is taking the fight directly to Greg Abbott, who for over a decade has helped the corrupt elite get rich while working Texans struggle to get by.