As the government shutdown drags on, the food insecurity of roughly 40 million Americans is being used as a political bargaining chip — and emerging as an appalling example of right-wing “populism.”
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as food stamps, has been in the news for days as funding for the program expired and the deadline for benefits to be paid out loomed.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that “millions of low-income Americans will see staggering cuts and delays to their food stamps this month — with some receiving potentially nothing at all — because of the way that the White House has chosen to pay partial benefits during the government shutdown.”
Now it looks like the way in which SNAP benefits will be disbursed will make it harder for people to access the aid they should be getting.
Initially, the Trump administration took the position that it would not pay anything at all. In mid-October, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters that the shutdown meant the program was going to “run out of money” at the end of the month. The Trump administration, attempting to win a political battle with Democrats over the federal shutdown, said it could not pay any benefits for November. But SNAP has a contingency fund of about $6 billion, more than $5 billion of which could be used toward SNAP benefits. That sum would cover a good chunk of the roughly $8 billion in November payments.
Last week, two federal judges ruled that Trump could not legally suspend SNAP payments. They determined that the administration had incorrectly argued that it was legally barred from accessing the contingency fund — and that the administration was required to pay at least partial benefits by tapping into the fund.
Yet Trump has dragged his feet. After the court rulings came down, the president, who has made novel claims this year to executive powers, said he needed more clarity. He posted on Truth Social: “Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do.” Then on Tuesday, he threatened to buck the courts, saying all SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” His administration has since walked back that position, saying it was working on sending out the partial funds in accordance with court orders. But now it looks like the way in which SNAP benefits will be disbursed will make it harder for people to access the aid they should be getting. According to the Times: By Tuesday, officials at the Agriculture Department issued more intricate guidance, which appeared to suggest some families could lose SNAP benefits entirely. The agency essentially required states to recalculate benefits for SNAP beneficiaries, using a new rubric to determine payment amounts. The extent of those changes alarmed anti-hunger groups and angered state officials, some of whom described the revisions as unnecessary, punitive and burdensome at a perilous time for many poor families. Analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities cited by the Times calculates that the new shutdown policy could cut benefits by 61% — a bigger cut to benefits than what the Trump administration estimated in court based on the contingency fund. In other words, the Trump administration may be using bureaucratic hurdles to minimize the benefits it must provide from its contingency fund. Furthermore, it’s unclear when the payments will be going out — an uncertainty that could be an additional source of distress for people who rely on them. This is all pretty appalling. As Trump throws ostentatious Gatsby-themed parties and posts photos of his refurbishment of the White House, he’s playing politics with the hunger of roughly 40 million Americans. And he’s doing it because he and his party refuse to accede or even negotiate on Democrats’ demands to extend Obamacare subsidies to keep health insurance affordable for millions of Americans. It only underscores how much his agenda is hostile to the working class and poor.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this bio. 
