As SNAP termination looms, politicians trade jabs over government shutdown

WASHINGTON — With federal food assistance on the brink of vanishing this weekend for millions nationally, New York’s Democratic and Republican members of Congress and Gov. Kathy Hochul engaged Thursday in dueling blame-throwing news conferences from Washington to Harlem.

Also Thursday, a federal judge in Boston reacted skeptically to the Trump’s administration’s argument that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits could be suspended for the first time in the program’s history because of the government shutdown.

On one side of the U.S. Capitol, New York's Democratic senators — Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand — attacked President Donald Trump for not allowing nearly $5 billion in emergency contingency funds previously designated for the food assistance program to be used during the shutdown.

In lieu of that, they urged congressional Republicans to pass a standalone Senate Democratic bill to prevent interruption of food programs as the U.S. government shutdown hit its 30th day.

Hochul, appearing at New York Common Pantry in Harlem surrounded by clergy and state Democratic elected officials, declared that the looming suspension of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly known as food stamps — is a moral crisis that she blamed on Republicans.

If the government closure is not resolved by Saturday, as many as 3 million New Yorkers and 160,000 Long Islanders will be among 42 million Americans at risk of missing the benefits, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced.

Declaring a “food emergency," Hochul said no state can “backfill" to make up for federal dollars put into the program, which she said was about $650 million monthly in New York. But she said $106 million from state coffers will be dedicated for emergency food assistance in the state. That would provide over 56 million meals to stock food pantries and distribution centers, she said.

“Moms thinking about little kids sitting in class, their stomachs growling … that’s hard to accept. How can that happen in this great country?” Hochul said. She noted that the current government shutdown was the first that did not make an accommodation for food benefits.

“Every other one [shutdown], they said we can make political points … but never before have they literally said we’re going to stop feeding Americans,” Hochul said.

Hochul added: “This is a moment for our community to rise up and respond to something that can only be described as a moral crisis. Because I believe it’s immoral for people to suffer because Republicans will not unleash the food emergency funds that are sitting there."

The looming cessation of SNAP benefits is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by 25 state leaders, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, over whether the contingency funds can be used to keep the benefits flowing.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston said Thursday she would rule on whether to require the government to put the billions of dollars in emergency funds toward SNAP.

Talwani told lawyers that if the government can’t afford to cover the cost, there’s a process to follow rather than simply suspending all benefits.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was accompanied by five New York House Republicans — including Long Island’s Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota — at a simultaneous second event at the U.S. Capitol. He called on Schumer and Senate Democrats to avoid the food-funding interruption by simply helping Senate Republicans advance a House-passed bill to reopen government.

The GOP news conference was intended to have a New York bent. Johnson opened by accusing Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — both of Brooklyn — of “desperately” putting their own political survival ahead of the nation by appeasing a Marxist and rising “radical socialist wind” in their own city and state.

Johnson pointed specifically to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani repeatedly as “Exhibit A” of what’s driving them, and said Mamdani's potential victory in the election Tuesday “would be the biggest win for a Marxist, a socialist, in the history of the country.”

“They’re smart politicians in that way,” Johnson said of Schumer and Jeffries, “that they can feel the political winds, and they know they have to continue to act belligerently in order to gain the favor of the far left. It’s their own political survival that they have put ahead of the needs of the entire country.”

Garbarino, in an interview afterward, said he agreed with Johnson that Schumer and other Democrats are acting out of fear from their party’s far left by insisting health care subsidies set to expire must be added to the Republican bill to reopen government. He said the immediate concern is about the lapse in food assistance.

“We've been in contact with the food banks — they’re already running out of food and they're expecting huge, huge lines and huge amounts of people showing up," Garbarino said. "And they barely have enough to be able to do what they’re doing now."

Through all of this, no details of any potential bipartisan resolution emerged at any of the events.

Schumer sought to add some historical perspective: “For the first time in history, a president is refusing to fund SNAP during a shutdown, ripping away food from hungry children, veterans who might have PTSD and needy senior citizens who have relied on SNAP to help pay for their food."

“Why is he doing this? Not that the money is gone. The money is there," Schumer said.

Asked about Schumer's remarks, the White House press office referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget, which responded by providing Newsday with Monday's USDA memo outlining the agency's reasons for not tapping contingency funds to pay for SNAP during the shutdown.

The memo argues that the contingency funds are meant to be used mainly for disaster relief to help provide assistance to those "impacted by hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice." The October memo is a reversal of a Sept. 30 memo that stated the emergency funds could be used during a shutdown. "The best way for SNAP to continue is for the shutdown to end," states the memo.

Gillibrand also cast the SNAP program as a vital lifeline for recipients in New York, “the majority of whom are children, working people, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities." She and Schumer also issued an alarm regarding WIC assistance — Women, Infants and Children nutrition programs — being at risk of running out if the shutdown continues for an extended time.

New York’s junior senator noted the Trump-backed tax-and-spending law passed over the summer cut $186 billion from the program and implemented a series of new eligibility requirements aimed at reducing enrollment in it. Republicans have said the changes were established to reduce fraud.

“Make no mistake, the Trump administration is trying to score political points by inflicting maximum pain on the very people they are supposed to be protecting. But for families already stretched thin, this decision is more than political — it’s a matter of survival," Gillibrand said.

Garbarino said his frustration is that “this can all be worked out" — that is, if only five more Senate Democrats would vote for the already-passed House bill to reopen government. And then the other issues can be negotiated, he said.

Hochul said she was deploying the Empire State Service Corps and SUNY Civic Engagement Corps to bring in students to help with distribution at New York Common Pantry.

The state is covering the cost of breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, Hochul said, but she added that she also is working with state lawmakers to find ways to “utilize our schools as food hubs," to pack sandwiches for kids to take home. But she said, "We're being told we cannot send food home," adding that state officials were looking for an end-run to get around that prohibition.

With AP