Trump Doesn't Have To Cut Off SNAP Benefits, He Is Choosing To Cut Off SNAP Benefits
There are contingency plans and the GOP is opting not to use them.
Forty million Americans will be in serious danger of food insecurity next month if SNAP benefits do not go out on November 1 as they are supposed to. Unfortunately for those people, the GOP is holding them as hostages in order to force Democrats to cry “uncle” and agree to let ACA subsidies expire, causing monthly premiums to double for 22 million Americans.
The administration is going all out, trying to convince those people and everyone else to blame Democrats — even going so far as to once again violate the Hatch Act by putting up the following batshit notice on the USDA’s official website:
Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.
Once again, this is absolute nonsense.
There is no special “healthcare for illegal aliens” provision at issue in the shutdown, not in the least because undocumented immigrants are legally barred from receiving federal benefits in most situations. The only care they might get is the kind of stabilizing care that hospitals are required to provide to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. Republicans want to cut the amount of money that those hospitals will be reimbursed for doing that, which will only hurt the hospitals.
It’s partly the same deal with gender-affirming care. What they want to do is strip federal funding for hospitals that treat transgender people of any age in hopes of forcing them not to. They also want to ban pride flags in public buildings. What does that have to do with funding the government? Literally nothing, they just want to hurt and exclude people. They want to rile up their base by tapping into their irrational and hysterical anger at undocumented immigrants and trans people.
You may be wondering “But how did we fund SNAP during other government shutdowns? Or did we just starve people then, as well, and I didn’t notice it? Am I a monster?”
No you are not! Because we did not do that! Why? Because there are contingency funds, and the Trump administration is refusing to use those contingency funds because they want people to be mad at Democrats. Likely because it’s been really hard for them to get people mad at Democrats when even Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying that she doesn’t want people’s premiums to double, either.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explains, “nearly two-thirds of the funds needed for a full month of benefits are available in SNAP’s contingency fund and must be used when regular funding for SNAP runs short.”
These multi-year contingency plans include $3 billion each from 2024 and 2025 that were put aside “for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations.” Some of that money has already been used to reimburse states for some administrative expenses during the shutdown, but there is still $5 billion left that could (and legally must) go towards the $8 billion necessary to fully fund SNAP for the next month.
In fact, it is literally the law that they be used in this situation. As far as the rest of the funds, the administration can and should do the same thing it did to fund WIC earlier this month.
Via the CBPP:
Moreover, the Secretary of Agriculture has discretion under the law (7 U.S.C. § 2257) to transfer funds among USDA’s nutrition programs, with certain limitations. This is the authority USDA used to transfer $300 million to WIC earlier this month from the Child Nutrition budget account (which funds school meal programs) to prevent disruption in WIC. The Child Nutrition account has carry-over funds available from 2025 appropriations and, according to USDA’s shutdown plan and Office of Management and Budget apportionment documents, more than $23 billion in transferred appropriations from another USDA account known as “Section 32.” Permanent law (i.e., no annual appropriation required) provides that 30 percent of prior year’s custom duties are deposited into Section 32, a substantial portion of which is transferred to Child Nutrition each year.
There is absolutely no reason other than dire cruelty to deprive poor families of the money they need to feed themselves and their children, especially during the month of Thanksgiving.
Of course, despite the fact that the administration is trying to position itself as the one being prevented from caring for America’s poor by the cruel Democrats, who want to use all of everyone’s tax money to shower undocumented transgender immigrants with money and jewels, much of the rest of the GOP is still firmly on Team Fuck the Poor.
Like, for instance, Trump’s lawyer pal and staunchest defender, Mike Davis, who wrote the worst poem ever about it over on Xitter:
We should only help people who can’t help themselves.
It’s outrageous 40MM people get food stamps.
Get off your fat, ghetto asses.
Get a job.
Stop reproducing.
Change your shitty culture.
Stop giving food stamps to immigrants.
We don’t want you here, if you won’t work.
What a charmer! Wonder how he gets along with the “have children you can’t afford!” contingent of the GOP?
We’re going to have to note, however, that more than two-thirds of SNAP recipients are not expected to work, on account of how they are children, the elderly or the disabled. Now, we all know how some Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, fetishize child labor, but that’s still pretty illegal.
The vast majority of SNAP recipients who can work do work (84 percent), and many of them work full-time, just at very low paying jobs. In many ways, in fact, SNAP is a subsidy for businesses who prefer not to pay their workers enough to eat. In order to work most places, people must be able to eat so they don’t pass out, have somewhere to sleep at night, and be able to take a shower. And there are a whole lot of places out there that don’t want to pay people enough to do that.
Yes, some SNAP recipients are out of work, but who among us thinks people should starve just because they are out of work? Hiring has slowed to the lowest non-pandemic point in over a decade and job cuts have hit people hard, particularly in the manufacturing sector Trump pretends to care so much about. Personally, I don’t think they should starve just because Donald Trump and friends are killing the economy.
Many of the immigrants who are here are refugees and asylum-seekers that we are required to take in as both a matter of international law and our own supreme law of the land. Many of them are victims of sex-trafficking, even. These people need a little bit of help to get back on their feet, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Sorry if the refugees are not independently wealthy!
That being said, according to the right-wing (but pro-immigration) Cato Institute, while non-citizen immigrants make up about 7.3 percent of the population, they are only about 3.5 percent of welfare recipients, and only about 50 percent of those who are actually eligible for these programs even apply. According to a report from NPR, “only 50% of eligible noncitizens (which includes refugees and green card holders) and 59% of eligible children living with noncitizen adults participated in SNAP in 2022.”
In fact, approximately 18 percent of people who qualify for SNAP do not participate in the program — including nine million seniors. That should make Mike Davis happy, no?
The idea that there are just legions of people out there living high off the government hog on welfare benefits is fairly absurd when one considers that the average monthly payout per participant is $187 a month, and the average household payot is $322. Have you been to the grocery store lately? Because that’s not going to get you too far.
Recent studies have found that 60 percent of Americans say they can’t afford groceries right now, so imagine how the 12 percent of people who are actually poor enough to be on SNAP are going to fare this month.
Again, this is a choice that the Trump administration is making. They are choosing to let people starve to death, just so they can experience the sheer joy of watching millions of Americans lose their healthcare. That is what is happening here. They are choosing not to use the contingency funds because they want people to be mad at Democrats, and somehow think they’re going to pull this off while simultaneously claiming that that none of the people who get SNAP even deserve it.
Hopefully, they won’t get away with it. Given that a clear majority of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown, they may not be able to.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
All this after cutting trillions in taxes for the rich
The Republican Party's War on America continues apace. And effectively unopposed.