The Trump administration stated it wasn’t permitted to utilize a contingency fund with approximately $5 billion to fund SNAP.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins denied reports on Oct. 31 that her agency has money to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that will be cut or suspended for beneficiaries starting Nov. 1.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Rollins said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a contingency fund, but it doesn’t cover “even half” of what’s needed to provide funding for SNAP beneficiaries.
Also, “it is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded,” Rollins said.
She added that the suggestion that the USDA has the money to pay for the program “is a lie.”
On Oct. 25, the Trump administration stated that it wasn’t permitted to utilize a contingency fund with approximately $5 billion in it to fund SNAP.
Democratic-led states have argued in a lawsuit against the federal government that not only can that contingency money be used, but it must be. They also said a separate fund with around $23 billion could be tapped.
Lawyers for the federal government argued that dispersing the full benefits would violate a law that bars the government from paying for programs without a congressional appropriation. In court papers, the federal government said partial payments would require complicated recalculations of benefits that could take weeks.
The lapse in funding for SNAP comes one month into a federal government shutdown. More than a dozen attempts to pass a measure to reopen the government have failed in the Senate since Oct. 1.
At issue are health care subsidies that are due to expire by the end of this year. Democrats want a reopening measure to include an extension of the subsidies, while Republicans say that talks on the extension can start only if the government is reopened.
On Oct. 31, both sides continued to make accusations against one another, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) trading barbs with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in separate news conferences.
