Senate Democrats voted against a House of Representatives-passed continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21 for the 15th time on Friday, stretching the shutdown to a record 39 days.
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to at least make partial SNAP payments to recipients, equal to the size of available funds left in an emergency fund designed to cover SNAP payments. But now the judge is back, demanding that the administration make full November SNAP payments, even though there is no lawful appropriation or dedicated fund to do so.
“It’s an absurd ruling because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown,” Vice President JD Vance said in response to a question about the ruling. “We can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation. We’re trying to keep as much turned on. We’re trying to keep as much going as possible. The president and the entire administration are working on that, but we’re not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge.”
There are about 42 million people receiving $8 billion a month in food stamp benefits. The Agriculture Department maintains a contingency fund to help keep food stamp payments stable, but there is only $4.65 billion in that fund, not enough to pay everyone’s full benefits.
After a federal district judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to pay out at least partial benefits until the fund was exhausted, the Agriculture Department complied, releasing to each state its share of the SNAP funds. But SNAP is a federally funded program administered by the states, and the states are having administrative trouble getting those partial payments out the door. Implementing major modifications to a safety net spending program in the middle of a government shutdown is not as easy as some federal judges think it is.
Faced with delays caused by partial payment, the same judge is now ordering the Agriculture Department to tap a totally different fund to issue full payments for November. But that fund, the Section 32 Child Nutrition Programs Fund, was designed primarily to be a backup fund for the school lunch program, not food stamps. The Section 32 fund has also been used to bail out farmers with direct payments, including by President Bill Clinton to compensate hog farmers in 1998 and by President Donald Trump in 2018 to compensate soy bean farmers caught up in his first-term trade war.
It is one thing for a federal judge to order the executive branch to pay benefits by emptying an emergency fund created specifically to fund that program, but it is an entirely different matter to start siphoning dollars from a federal fund designed to support one program to bail out a completely different federal program. That is not how the Constitution works.
The chaos caused by the Democratic Party is going to grow as the shutdown drags on. Already, hundreds of flights have been canceled across the country because there are too few air traffic controllers to operate them safely. Section 8 housing rents are not being paid to landlords, and hospitals are not receiving Medicaid payments.
DEMOCRATS’ OFF-YEAR WINS REMIND US WHY THE FILIBUSTER IS NEEDED
None of this pain was necessary, and all of it can be ended immediately if Senate Democrats simply vote with Republicans to pass the continuing resolution and open the government.
Democrats say they care about protecting poor people, but they are the ones keeping the government closed. The Constitution gives Congress, not courts, the power to appropriate money. If Democrats want to ensure that 42 million people receive their full food stamp benefits, they can do so today by voting to reopen the government. Every day they refuse to act, they deepen the suffering of low-income families, jeopardize essential programs, and invite judicial overreach. It’s time for Democrats to stop the gamesmanship, restore lawful governance, and let the people who depend on these programs get the help Washington promised them.
