The coming lapse of SNAP benefits could be the most severe impact yet of the government shutdown, which appears likely to become the longest one of all time, and Republicans in Congress are adamant it’s entirely Democrats’ fault for refusing to vote for their funding bill.
“As there are millions of Americans this morning that are bracing themselves for further pain and hardship,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday, “the Democrats, incredibly, are showing no signs at all that they want to end their shutdown.”
HuffPost asked Johnson why the Trump administration shouldn’t do what it ddid in Trump’s first term, when it paid SNAP benefits several weeks early in case the shutdown dragged into a second month.
“Well, the president, his administration, has done exactly what he did in the first term, and that is bend over backwards to make sure that we mitigate the harm,” Johnson said, incorrectly.
Regarding the early benefits in 2019, the Justice Department noted in its brief that the Government Accountability Office said the early dispersal was unlawful, but also portrayed it as a successful gambit that’s just no longer available.
“In January 2019, though there were insufficient long-term emergency fund moneys available, USDA was able to structure ‘early issuance’ of benefits and the lapse ended before any shortfall in funds required drawing down the long-term emergency fund,” the administration’s lawyers said.
David Super, an expert on administrative law at Georgetown University Law School, questioned the administration’s decision to not to tap its contingency fund.
“USDA said that it would prefer to hold money in reserve to help victims of any future natural disasters,” Super told HuffPost in an email. “That is a strange preference when withholding SNAP’s contingency reserves means that 42 million real people will face immediate crises obtaining food.”
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In response to the coming food cliff, Democrats have increased the number of press conferences they’re holding this week and introduced standalone bills to keep the SNAP money flowing, only to see the legislation blocked or ignored by Republicans.
Johnson said opening the government piecemeal, such as by funding the USDA for the distribution of food benefits, would weaken Republicans’ leverage over Democrats.
“If you do just part of this, it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it, to do their basic job, and that is reopen the government,” Johnson told CNN.
One GOP lawmaker, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), introduced a SNAP bill of his own, but it appears unlikely Republican leaders will allow it to get a vote in the Senate. Hawley said he didn’t support the administration sending out SNAP benefits otherwise.
“I honestly don’t know legally if you can or not. They think they can’t,” Hawley told HuffPost. “But the bottom line is that even if he could, I don’t think he has enough at his disposal to fund SNAP fully.”
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