President Donald Trump’s White House will be doling out partial funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but only after the courts have forced his hand.
After two federal judges ordered last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture needed to resume the lifesaving benefit, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins conceded to only partially paying out SNAP recipients.
Now, Trump and his lackeys, according to their Monday legal filing, will be paying out $5 billion using all the USDA contingency funds, but that falls well short of the $8 billion needed to pay out the full SNAP benefits.
Not only that, NPR reported, but the benefits will be delayed as well.
“Let them eat takeout” by Drew Sheneman
Republicans having their legal arm twisted to force them to feed the most vulnerable communities follows a similar narrative that Democrats have been using to frame the other party. According to Democrats, Trump and his GOP-controlled Senate have been “weaponizing hunger” in order to get the left to cave on their fight for health care.
Rollins’ USDA sent out a letter just last week instructing grocery stores not to supply food to SNAP recipients at a discounted rate.
And, for some reason, some Republicans—like MAGA influencer and Trump ally Mike Davis—still believe the false notion that people using the supplemental food program just need to get off their “fat, ghetto asses” and work more.
After all, Davis and many others seem to be forgetting that nearly 39% of SNAP recipients are under the age of 18. Then again, the right has been pushing the notion of increasing child labor.
In late October, the USDA announced that SNAP benefits would be frozen as a byproduct of the GOP-led government shutdown.
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As food shelters began bolstering their supplies and calling out for help to prepare for the additional food needed because of unpaid federal workers who were affected by the shutdown, the depletion of SNAP benefits hit hard as well.
In the ruling last week, the two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to use the Congress-allocated $5 billion emergency fund to pay out SNAP recipients.
And though Trump tried to argue that they couldn’t use the funds to feed an estimated 42 million of their most vulnerable, the judges clapped back ordering that they both could and will use it. As it turns out, starving your country to make a political statement just isn’t legal.
