With a major funding cut looming next week, lawmakers appear to be feeling the heat.
What are the benefits of SNAP and what happens during a shutdown?
SNAP helps 41.7 million Americans put food on the table, but benefits could stop starting Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown.
WASHINGTON – After a month of shutdown stalemate, the mood at the Capitol is beginning to change (albeit slowly).
In recent days, several senators, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have suggested that bipartisan behind-the-scenes maneuvering among rank-and-file members is gaining new momentum. The political move comes amid growing turmoil related to the government shutdown and with President Donald Trump scheduled to return from a week-long trip to Asia on Thursday, October 30th.
A major defunding of government programs that millions of Americans rely on is looming as early as this weekend. Lawmakers appear to be feeling the pressure.
“There’s a lot more bipartisan conversation,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. “That’s good news.”
The latest hiccup came Wednesday, when the Federal Aviation Administration cited staffing issues when ordering ground stops at Newark Liberty International Airport, a critical transportation hub. All flights to Los Angeles International Airport were temporarily suspended over the weekend for similar reasons.
But a bigger problem is at hand. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which serves more than 40 million low-income Americans, is expected to run out for the first time on Saturday, November 1st. A Democratic bill to protect food stamps from the effects of the government shutdown failed in the Senate Wednesday.
Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, warned that the impending crisis would be “America’s biggest hunger catastrophe since the Great Depression.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed and government agencies are working at only a fraction of their normal capacity.
A bill to keep funding flowing to food stamps and nutrition programs for low-income women, infants and children died on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, could soon run out, even with an infusion of emergency cash earlier this month.
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan urged the Senate to pass a process known as unanimity for legislation to fund SNAP and WIC through the government shutdown.
“Pass this bill now,” Luján said on the Senate floor. “Fund SNAP and fund WIC before this hunger crisis hits our communities.”
Majority Leader John Thune strongly opposed this on the Senate floor, urging lawmakers to pass the House-passed interim funding bill instead.
“The New Mexico senator is absolutely right. SNAP recipients shouldn’t go without food. People should get paid in this country, and we’ve tried to do that 13 times. And you voted against it 13 times,” Thune said.
“This is not a political game,” he added. “These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about, and you’re all just now realizing after the last 29 days that, oh, there might be consequences?”
– Rebecca Morin
Pay for House employees will be deferred until the government reopens, according to an email sent to staff Wednesday.
Their October salaries were originally scheduled to be paid on Friday.
House members have not voted in recent weeks. They remain on an indefinite notice of return of 48 hours.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the government shutdown will cost the U.S. economy between $7 billion and $14 billion (depending on whether it lasts another month), a loss that will never be recovered.
In a letter Wednesday, CBO said the nation’s economic activity will decline due to the closure, which is based on reduced services provided by hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees, reduced federal spending, and reductions in food assistance benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The CBO told House Budget Chairman Jody Arrington (R-Texas) that “the production losses caused by furloughed employees not working will not be reversed.”
The range of economic loss estimates is based on closures from October 29th to November 26th.
