00:00There are many policy disputes taking place on Capitol Hill right now, but there is one thing that's not up for debate.
00:0640 million low-income Americans are about to lose their SNAP food assistance on November 1st, and everyone in Congress agrees that's bad.
00:14We are very concerned about SNAP.
00:16But just like government funding, Republicans and Democrats both believe they're winning the political fight, and in turn, nothing is getting done to solve the problem.
00:25The Democrats could open this up in five minutes.
00:27Donald Trump is a vindictive politician and a heartless man.
00:33The fight over SNAP food assistance reached a fever pitch after the Trump administration said it cannot use a contingency fund with more than $5 billion in it to keep the program going and send low-income Americans the money they need to buy food.
00:48The Republicans can fund it now, and they're using these people as hostages, plain and simple.
00:53Here are the two main ways Democrats say Republicans can fund SNAP right now.
00:58The first is the use of the contingency fund.
01:01The Trump administration says it can't use the money to backfill SNAP.
01:04Democrats say that isn't true.
01:07They're accusing the USDA of removing a plan for a government shutdown from its website that shows they can use the fund and already have.
01:15And this is the bullshit. Taking these plans down to try to lie to the American people and justify why it's okay for people to go hungry.
01:24Based on 2024 spending levels, SNAP cost the federal government approximately $8.3 billion per month.
01:30So even if that $5 billion were used, it would only last two to three weeks.
01:35We have got to get the scale of the budget of the federal government in place.
01:40All these half measures are really just taking attention away from an irrational basis for shutting down the government that the Democrats own, I think, for the first time in my political career.
01:49The other way to fund SNAP is by passing Senator Josh Hawley's Keep SNAP Funded Act, which would ensure the food assistance program has all the money it needs until the shutdown is over.
01:59The bill has 11 Republican co-sponsors, which means it has enough votes to be approved in the Senate.
02:05But Majority Leader John Thune has not put it on the schedule for a vote, and no one has tried to approve it via unanimous consent.
02:12They're not calling it up because the House isn't here to pass it. That's the way it works.
02:16The House would have to come here. They probably would have to vote on the Epstein files, but they're choosing to let kids go hungry instead of having to vote on the Epstein files.
02:25There's no doubt about it. They have been out for six weeks on vacation.
02:29Republicans have a rather simple counter-argument. They say Democrats should vote to fund the government, and this issue would go away entirely.
02:37It's kind of frustrating that the Democrats feel like this is a leverage point for them. It's not a leverage point. It's dealing with people's lives.
02:46The government has now been shut down for one month, and we are no closer to a deal than we were on day one.
02:52I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Arrow News. For more unbiased reporting straight from our nation's capital, download the SAN app.
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