Elizabeth Butler goes from supermarket to supermarket in her hometown of Martinsburg, West Virginia, to make sure she gets the best price on every item on her shopping list.

Along with 42 million other Americans, she pays for that food with federal subsidies. That money doesn't cover the entire bill for her family of three.

“The food doesn't last us a month,” she says. “I go to all these different places just to make sure we have enough food to last the month.”

But that money could run out soon as Congress prepares to vote on what President Donald Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill.”

The food subsidy program Ms. Butler uses—called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP—is one of many items on the chopping block as Congress tries to reconcile the president's seemingly conflicting demands to lower taxes and balance the budget.

The Senate is due to vote on its version of the bill soon. If passed, it will go to the House of Representatives for a vote, at which point it will be sent to Trump for his signature.

The president has pushed both houses of Congress, which the Republican Party controls, to pass the bill by July 4.

The politics behind cutting SNAP

SNAP provides low-income households, including older Americans, families with children, and people with disabilities, with money each month to buy food.

In West Virginia, one of the states with the highest poverty rate, 16% of the population relies on the benefit.

The state is also a reliably Republican stronghold and voted overwhelmingly for Trump in November 2024 when he ran on a promise to lower the cost of living for Americans, including the price of groceries.

“When I win, I will immediately lower prices, starting on day one,” he said at an August news conference surrounded by packaged foods, milk, meats, and eggs.

Months after the president made that promise, prices for commonly purchased groceries like orange juice, eggs, and bacon are higher than they were this time last year.

It's a fact that hasn't been lost on Butler: “The president still hasn't changed food prices, and he promised people he would.”

Trump has argued, without providing an explanation as to how, that spending cuts in the 1,000-page budget proposal will help lower food prices: “The cut is going to give everyone a lot more food, because prices are going down a lot, groceries are going down,” Trump said when asked specifically about the SNAP cuts.

“The 'big, beautiful' law will ultimately strengthen SNAP through cost-sharing measures and common-sense work,” a White House official told the BBC.

Republicans have long been divided over how to fund social welfare programs like SNAP and Medicaid. While many think the government should prioritize balancing the budget, others, especially in impoverished regions, support programs that directly help their constituents.

As currently in place, Senate Republicans are proposing $211 billion in cuts, with states partly responsible for making up the difference.

In theory, passing the bill should be a political no-brainer, as Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

But because the bill includes cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicaid, which are popular with ordinary Americans, selling the bill to all factions of the GOP has been no easy feat.

“If we're not careful, people are going to get hurt.”

Reports of frustration and private dissent over potential cuts to Medicaid and SNAP have leaked out in recent weeks, laying bare the infighting brewing within the Republican Party.

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice told Politico in June that he has warned fellow Republicans that cutting SNAP could cost the party its congressional majority when voters return to the polls in 2026.

"If we're not careful, people are going to get hurt, people are going to be upset. It's going to be the No. 1 topic on mainstream news everywhere," Justice said.

“And then,We could very well wake up to a situation in this country where the majority quickly becomes the minority.”

A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 45% of Americans think food assistance programs like SNAP are underfunded, while only 30% think funding levels are adequate. About a quarter of those surveyed felt the programs are overfunded.

This isn't the first time the party has clashed over SNAP cuts, said Tracy Roof, a University of Richmond professor who is currently writing a book on the political history of SNAP.

Under the Biden administration, Congress allowed expanded benefits that had been put in place during Covid to be phased out, despite warnings from both Republicans and Democrats that Americans could go hungry.

“One of the hallmarks of SNAP is that it has bipartisan support, more than any other program against poverty,” Professor Roof told the BBC.

But this time is different.

“One thing that distinguishes this period from previous efforts to cut entitlement programs has been the willingness of Republican legislators to vote for things that they apparently, off the record, have a lot of concerns about,” she says. “It used to be that there were always moderate Republicans, particularly in the Senate, but in both houses, who were reluctant to compromise.”

She attributes this compliance to two things: a fear of upsetting Trump and a lack of fear of public backlash from representatives who hold easily re-elected seats in Congress.

The BBC contacted Congressman Riley Moore, who represents Martinsburg, West Virginia, about the impacts of the cuts on his constituents, but he did not respond.

Moore voted for the initial House bill, which included the SNAP cuts.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who had been one of the most vocal critics of the cuts, has since softened: Hawley told the news outlet NOTUS that he's “always supported” most of the Medicaid cuts and would “be fine” with most of what the bill contains.

“The only thing that's kept me and my family alive”

A father of two, Jordan, who asked that his last name not be used in this article, has survived the past three years on SNAP benefits.

He and his wife make about $700 a month to feed their family of four, but they still struggle.

The 26-year-old says his wife has struggled to find a job while also taking care of their two children, so if changes to the SNAP program impact his family, he's prepared to take action and get a second job.

“I'm going to make sure I do whatever it takes to feed my family,” he says.

He and other West Virginians are closely watching what happens with the law in Congress.

Cameron Whetzel, 25, grew up in a family that relied on SNAP. But when he and his wife tried to apply for the benefit, he learned that making $15 an hour was too much to qualify, he said.

“It's not right that I have to double my wages to buy food,” Whetzel said, adding, “We haven't bought eggs in four months because they're too expensive.”

He's frustrated, he says, that officials in Washington don't understand the impacts of the cuts they're backing in Congress.

“Making a federal cut that then has to fall on the state, which is already struggling, is like kicking a horse in the dirt,” Whetzel says. “Whether you believe in small government or big government, government has to provide for someone, somehow.”

*With additional reporting by Bernd Debusmann Jr

Click here to read more stories from BBC News.

Subscribe here to our new newsletter to receive a selection of our best content of the week every Friday.

You can also follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and on our new WhatsApp channel.

And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.