Oh, SNAP: Republicans Try to Fund Food Stamps in Shutdown

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri fears the federal government shutdown will lead to many going hungry, and he has a bill that he says would fix that. But given Democrats’ continued resistance to extending funding for government programs, it is likely to face partisan headwinds.

“We have 650,000 Missourians who get SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits,” Hawley told reporters Monday about the food stamp program. “We’re not a big state. That’s a lot of people. It’s 12% of the national population. Think about that: 12% of Americans get food assistance … that’s pretty extraordinary.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program’s benefits, has announced that, due to the shutdown, “the well has run dry” and “there will be no benefits issued” starting Nov. 1.

Hawley’s bill, the Keep SNAP Funded Act, would appropriate federal funds to the food stamp program and would also provide retroactive benefits to those who have missed them. It currently has 11 sponsors, with Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont as the only Democrat signing on in support.

Every prior attempt to fund the government on a piecemeal basis has failed during the current government shutdown.

A bill from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to pay federal employees was rejected by Democrats, as was a bill to fund the Department of War and thereby pay the troops.

Just three Democrat senators—John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia—voted to advance Johnson’s bill. Johnson is currently attempting to compromise with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to create an amended version to pass.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Johnson’s bill “nothing more than another tool for [President Donald] Trump to hurt federal workers and American families and to keep this shutdown going for as long as he wants.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has a bill to pay air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration employees.

Known as “rifle shot” bills, these have been attempts to put Democrats on the spot and pressure them to create momentum for funding the government.

“We got to fund all these things, but we’re trying to get the ball rolling, so that’s why you see some of these rifle shot ideas,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told reporters Monday.

But there is a legitimate concern that if Democrats took the opportunity to fund specific areas of the government, it could remove pressure points for them to facilitate a full reopening.

“It would take the pressure off Chuck Schumer to get his job done and open the government again,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said last week when asked whether he was interested in moving House bills to fund the government piece-by-piece.

But Hoeven said those bills could also do the opposite.

“Hopefully, it’ll put some pressure on them, so they pass the clean [continuing resolution]. We’re trying to break the logjam,” Hoeven said.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., signaled his support for the approach, although it’s far from ideal.

“Look, we want government open, and we’ll take as much as we possibly can, and hopefully [Democrats will] figure a path forward that they can live with,” Rounds said. 

“But it would be better if they just said, ‘Look, we’ve made our points, and now we’re going to open up government again,’ and then we can get back down to the negotiations that most of us want to have, and we’ll do the rest of our appropriations bills.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told reporters that the rejection of Johnson’s bill demonstrates a lack of interest among Democrats in advancing any of these bills.

“The Democrats aren’t going to support them. We already had one,” Mullin said, adding that Johnson’s bill “would have paid all of them. Not one at a time, it would have paid all of them.”

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