President Trump will tap emergency funds to continue paying some Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, for the month of November after two federal judges ordered him to keep the welfare program running.
The administration said Monday that it would use up a $4.65 billion contingency fund to disburse partial payments, but officials say full benefits cannot be guaranteed until Democrats agree to end the government shutdown, which was set to become the longest in U.S. history on Wednesday. The contingency plan only covers half of the $8 billion that SNAP consumes each month.
SNAP benefits lapsed over the weekend for the first time ever, making the shutdown very real for 42 million Americans who rely on benefits to buy food.
A pair of judges, Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island and Indira Talwani of Massachusetts, ordered the White House last week to keep SNAP benefits flowing and to present a plan by Monday.
Lawyers for the administration told McConnell on Monday that the entire contingency fund would be used to make partial payments for November, but it would not be appropriate to tap additional funding sources like the school lunch program.
"Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” Patrick Penn, who oversees the SNAP program at Department of Agriculture, wrote Monday.
“Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances,” he continued.
Democrats voted a fourteenth time to keep the government closed on Tuesday, sending the shutdown into a record 36th day on Wednesday. Led by Chuck Schumer (D-Ny.), Democrats have refused to fund the government without Republicans making extraneous concessions on healthcare.
The Trump administration has said disbursing partial SNAP payments is more complicated than giving out full benefits, and that Democrats are to blame for any delays that SNAP recipients experience in the coming days and weeks.
The White House clarified Tuesday that the partial payments will continue after Trump suggested SNAP funding might be withheld as leverage to force Democrats to end the shutdown.
"SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” Trump wrote in the post.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that “the administration is fully complying with the court order" concerning SNAP.
“The recipients of these SNAP benefits need to understand it’s going to take some time to receive this money, because the Democrats have forced the administration into a very untenable position," she said.
