MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
More than 40 million Americans will soon be without federal food assistance.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Trump administration says there is no money for SNAP benefits starting November 1, which is coming right up. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture says it will not use emergency funds to change that. In a moment, we'll hear what food banks plan to do.
MARTIN: NPR's Stephen Fowler is here to help explain how food benefits for low-income Americans are now being pulled into a political pressure campaign during the government shutdown. Stephen, good morning.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So who gets SNAP benefits, and why are they going away this weekend?
FOWLER: Well, Michel, 1 in 8 Americans receive SNAP benefits. Many of them are children, senior citizens and low-income working families. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says, quote, "the well has run dry" because of the government shutdown. SNAP benefits are mandated by law, but the funds come from annual appropriations. Since Congress didn't pass a spending plan for the fiscal year that started October 1, there are no appropriations to cover the roughly $8 billion a month that it takes to handle SNAP benefits.
Now, under the hood, when Congress does pass a budget, federal agencies are given Treasury accounts where money is available for a certain period of time to be spent. The account where SNAP benefits would come from this fiscal year doesn't exist yet and has no money to be put inside of it. But there's a little under $6 billion in contingency fund accounts that some budget experts tell NPR should be used to fund benefits. The Trump administration disagrees.
MARTIN: How come?
FOWLER: Well, there's this memo released Friday by the USDA that argues it's actually illegal to use these contingency funds to pay for benefits. Right now the administration claims that the emergency money is only able to be used as a supplement when there's regularly appropriated funds, which, because of the shutdown, there are not. Those budget experts I spoke with also point to the funding bills that created the contingency funds, intended for use as necessary to, quote, "carry out program operations."
MARTIN: So this - it would seem like this is a matter of interpretation. But, you know, Stephen, this month, we've seen the White House find money to pay active-duty military members and to tout tariff transfers to extend coverage of WIC. That's nutrition assistance that serves low-income women, infants and children. Why is this different?
FOWLER: Well, you know, the USDA's initial plan for the shutdown mentioned the contingency funds as an option and indicated that Congress intended for SNAP's operations to continue in a shutdown. That plan has been removed from their website. As for WIC, if you look at federal budget documents, you can see the $300 million that has been transferred to that program from a child nutrition account funded by a portion of last year's tariff revenues. The USDA says further transfers to cover SNAP would jeopardize other nutrition programs like school meals. I also looked into the federal government's budget data and found that, just like SNAP, there aren't actually Treasury accounts that exist that allow the military to get paid this fiscal year. But the Trump administration chose to make those payments and say that unused research funds were close enough in purpose to make it work.
MARTIN: You know, it would seem that there have been a lot of choices made during the shutdown that are aimed at putting pressure on Democrats to reopen the government. Is this one of them?
FOWLER: Well, the USDA website blames Democrats for the shutdown and for no more SNAP funds. Same with a memo outlining why the administration won't use those contingency funds. This month, the White House has tried to fire workers and slash spending to what it calls, quote, "Democrat programs." That targets policies Democrats tend to support in areas Democrats tend to live. Shutdown or not, though, Michel, that's been the Trump administration's goal this whole year - punishing Democrats and restructuring the government.
MARTIN: OK. That is NPR's Stephen Fowler. Stephen, thank you.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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