Two federal judges mentioned Friday that the Trump administration should tap into billions of {dollars} in emergency funds to at the very least partially cover food stamp benefits for tens of hundreds of thousands of Americans in November.
The rulings from judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island reject a controversial US Department of Agriculture declare that it couldn’t use a contingency fund, which the company says has $5.3 billion remaining in it, to assist cover the benefits amid the month-long authorities shutdown.
The SNAP program prices roughly $9 billion a month, so the orders is not going to cover all the wanted funds for November.
“There is no doubt that the … contingency funds are appropriated funds that are without a doubt necessary to carry out the program’s operation.” US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island mentioned. “The shutdown of the government through funding doesn’t do away with SNAP, it just does away with the funding of it.”
McConnell’s ruling got here throughout a rapidly scheduled listening to got here minutes after US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston made an identical order. Talwani additionally mentioned USDA is allowed to tap into one other bucket of cash to permit it to pay full benefits for November, however that call is at the moment up to the administration.
“This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program. And while these contingency funds reportedly are insufficient to cover the entire cost of SNAP for November, Defendants also may supplement the Contingency Funds by authorizing a transfer of additional funds … to avoid any reductions,” Talwani said in a 15-page order.
However, hundreds of thousands of recipients will nonetheless face delays in getting their benefits, which had been scheduled to begin being distributed on November 1. It will take time for the Department of Agriculture and states to get the cash flowing once more.
President Donald Trump urged Friday that the federal government might proceed to fund important food support past November 1, contradicting his administration’s prior insistence there was no cash accessible to preserve the benefits.
“Well, there always is,” Trump mentioned in response to a query from a reporter about whether or not the administration might discover funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, earlier than arguing that it’d be less complicated for Democrats to reopen the federal government. “But all the Democrats have to do is say, let’s go. I mean, they don’t have to do anything — all they have to do is say the government is open.”
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