WASHINGTON ― Food benefits for millions have become a top flashpoint in the government shutdown that shows no end in sight.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is adamant that it can’t pay next month’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits unless Congress approves legislation to fund agency operations.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01,” says a prominent message on the agency’s website.
The USDA said in a Friday memo it couldn’t use contingency funds or money from other sources to cover all or part of the roughly $8 billion needed for November’s SNAP allotment. The position seemed to contradict a September contingency plan, since deleted from the USDA’s website, that said Congress intended “that SNAP’s operations should continue” and that contingency funds “are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.”
Democrats say any missing benefits will be the Trump administration’s fault, not theirs. Except for certain essential functions, federal agencies shut down earlier this month after most Senate Democrats voted against a “continuing resolution” that would have funded operations into mid-November.
“There are clear steps the administration can and must take immediately to ensure that millions of families across the country can put food on their table in November,” congressional Democrats said in a letter to the USDA on Friday. “Choosing not to ensure SNAP benefits reach those in need this November would be a gross dereliction of your responsibilities to the American people.”
It’s somewhat surprising that the Trump administration has said its hands are tied on SNAP after taking legally questionable steps to pay active-duty military servicemembers and also finding money for a special nutrition program for pregnant women and nursing mothers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the administration’s legal analysis “legitimate” on Monday.
“There has to be a pre existing appropriation for the contingency fund to be used, and Democrats blocked that appropriation when they rejected the clean continuum resolution,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “It’s so infuriating to us. The best way for SNAP benefits to be paid on time is for the Democrats to end their shutdown, and that could happen right now if they would show some spine.”
More than 22 million households receive SNAP benefits, averaging about $350 per month. Missing November’s could devastate those households’ food budgets and hurt retailers’ and food producers’ bottom lines. Along with air traffic control staffing and troop pay, the lapse of benefits could be a major pressure point on lawmakers in the funding standoff.
Democrats seem united, however, in their contention that the Trump administration can pay November’s SNAP benefits if it wants.
“The Administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need ― choosing to inflict pain on families ― despite knowing that it has the authority to do so,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Saturday. “That is unacceptable. Hunger isn’t a bargaining chip.”
Anti-hunger groups agree.
“We want to be crystal clear: USDA has both the funding and the legal authority to prevent 42 million Americans from going hungry during this shutdown,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said Friday. “The claim that the Trump administration cannot deliver November SNAP benefits is unequivocally false. This is a disaster.”
David Super, an expert on administrative procedure at Georgetown University Law School, said the USDA’s apparent refusal to pay benefits is obviously illegal.
“The Administration has chosen to hold food for more than forty million vulnerable people hostage to try to force Democrats to capitulate without negotiations,” Super blogged last week.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has repeatedly pointed out Republicans included cuts to SNAP benefits to help offset the cost of the tax cuts they enacted earlier this year.
“People ought to believe right now that Republicans actually care about hunger?” Jeffries said Friday. “When they rip food away from the mouths of hungry children, seniors, families, women and veterans to provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors? Get lost with that.”