The fight over food stamps has become the latest flashpoint in the fierce partisan conflict over government spending.
Republicans in Congress are increasingly emphasizing the looming Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) deficit to pressure Democrats to facilitate end the ongoing shutdown. They say that by rejecting Republicans’ stopgap bill, Democrats are threatening undue harm to some of the country’s poorest people.
Democrats countered with accusations of hypocrisy, pointing to Republicans’ long history of eliminating federal programs that benefit low-income people, including SNAP. As recent evidence, they point to the drastic cuts to SNAP passed this year as part of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
The standoff is entrenched and the impact on SNAP is already perceptible, as some states have stopped accepting fresh applications and others warn that benefit funding will desiccated up before the end of the month.
If the shutdown were to extend into November, the impact would be even more earnest for the more than 40 million low-income earners who benefit from food subsidies. In the best-case scenario of a shutdown, these people are expected to receive smaller payments to cover their grocery bills. In the worst case scenario, they get nothing.
In fact, several states are already warning that SNAP payments will be stopped altogether.
This active has heightened advocates’ warnings about the damaging effects of withholding SNAP benefits in an already volatile economy and increased pressure on Congress to reach a budget agreement before those effects fully materialize.
The issue has also fueled daily finger-pointing arguments on Capitol Hill over which party is to blame for the shutdown — and the resulting threat to SNAP.
“42 million people across America will suffer [not getting] These SNAP benefits they’re counting on right before Thanksgiving because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are so livid with President Trump that they just want to find a way to say no,” House Republican Rep. Steve Scalise (La.) told reporters this week.
“This has real impacts on real families.”
Democrats have fired back, incredulous that the same Republicans who have tried for decades to shrink the federal government and cut programs for low-income people are now claiming to be the guardians of those very things.
“You’re now trying to portray yourself as a champion of federal workers – a champion of food programs and health care – when all you’ve done since taking office is take the ax to all of that?” Representative Katherine Clark (Massachusetts), the Democratic Party leader, said this on Wednesday.
Democrats point specifically to Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the massive package of tax cuts and spending priorities that GOP leaders pushed through Congress and signed into law over the summer.
Much of the Democratic criticism of this bill has focused on the hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts proposed in the legislation. But with SNAP benefits at risk during the shutdown, Democrats are now pointing to the law’s drastic SNAP cuts, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates at $186 billion over the next decade.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that Trump and Republicans “literally stole this money from the mouths of hungry children, seniors, veterans and families” to cover the cost of tax cuts for wealthy GOP supporters.
“Because of this, the American people are at risk of going hungry — millions of them,” Jeffries told reporters outside the Capitol.
A huge question in the debate remains how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency that oversees SNAP from Washington, plans to administer the program in the coming weeks.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned last week that the department lacks the resources “to provide SNAP to 40 million Americans beginning Nov. 1.”
“Democrats are putting free health care for illegal immigrants and their policy agenda ahead of food security for American families.” she attacked.
However, the USDA has not made clear whether it intends to utilize a SNAP emergency fund to pay benefits during the shutdown. That fund currently totals between $5 billion and $6 billion, according to advocates and congressional staff who monitor the issue. That’s less than the nearly $8 billion needed to pay full benefits through November, but would allow partial payments to cover food costs during the shutdown.
Advocates for low-income families are not only urging the USDA to release these funds, they also say the government is required by law to do so.
“Secretary Rollins’ assertion that the Trump Administration would be unable to deliver November SNAP benefits during a shutdown is clearly false,” Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a statement Thursday.
SNAP advocates also want Trump’s budget team to explore other funding sources to pool the program’s benefits – a strategy the administration has already used to pay military personnel and make up a shortfall under a separate federal nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC.
“The money can be raised by the administration if they wish,” Jeffries said.
Amid the debate, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced legislation to maintain full funding for SNAP during the shutdown. The bill is unlikely to be implemented in a stalemate if both sides have refused to make concessions to the other.
But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has kept the House out of Washington for weeks, indicated he would be willing to vote on the proposal — if it could pass the Senate.
“If the Senate passes the bill, the House will take it up,” Johnson said during a news conference Thursday. “You’re talking about – I believe 42 or 43 million Americans rely on this vital service – and it’s unreasonable that they’re being held in check and used as a bargaining chip to do that.”
Emily Brooks contributed.
