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“SNAP recipients shouldn’t go without food. People should be getting paid in this country. And we’ve tried to do that thirteen times! You voted no thirteen times! This isn’t a political game. These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about!”
That was Senate Majority Leader John Thune ranting on the Senate floor this week, trying to blame Democrats for the cutoff of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on Saturday.
Look, it’s fair to tag Democrats for being the instigators of the government shutdown, but not for President Donald Trump’s decisions that maximize the shutdown’s pain and hurt people who do not need to be hurt.
Before the shutdown began almost a month ago, the Department of Agriculture, led by Secretary Brooke Rollins, made clear that the delivery of SNAP, still often referred to by its former moniker, Food Stamps, need not be impacted. The 55-page USDA “Lapse of Funding Plan” includes the following section:
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): OMB’s General Counsel provided a letter to USDA on May 23, 2025, stating that there is a bona fide need to obligate benefits for October –…thereby guaranteeing that benefit funds are available for program operations even in the event of a government shutdown at the beginning of a fiscal year. In addition, Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown…
That plan was available here at this URL until at least October 10, according to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. But Trump’s USDA has memory-holed it. When you go to that URL now, you get an attack on Democrats that almost surely violates the Hatch Act: “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.”
The website change tracked a USDA memo issued last week claiming “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits … Instead, the contingency fund is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program,” an assertion that contradicts the earlier USDA plan, and many legal experts reject. The New York Times reported:
David A. Super, a law professor at Georgetown University and a federal budget expert, called the memo’s rationale “absurd,” and said “nothing in the law imposes that limit” of using contingency funding only for natural disasters. “Both the first Trump administration and this administration, as recently as the end of September, said these funds were available in the case of lapses in appropriations,” he said. “This is blatantly lawless.”
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes that SNAP has never been disrupted during past shutdowns. “During both Republican and Democratic administrations, SNAP benefits have always been provided using available funding sources to prevent a break in benefits.”
Republicans can fairly blame Democrats for other shutdown-related disruptions, such as the lack of routine food inspections, unstaffed national parks, and cessation of paychecks for most federal workers. (Democrats can retort by noting Republicans can reopen the government on their own by suspending the filibuster.)
But Democrats shoulder no responsibility for Trump and Rollins cutting off SNAP benefits from those who need them to survive. You can’t even argue Democrats should have expected SNAP to be affected because USDA declared ahead of the shutdown that it wouldn’t. The number of recipients tops 40 million, more than a tenth of the U.S. population. Aside from the human suffering, the economic blow to grocers, distributors, and farmers will be sizeable, too. This is why these programs, at least until recently, enjoyed bipartisan support.
Thune can save his performative rage for the people playing political games with people’s lives: Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Rollins.
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