WASHINGTON — On the 28th day of the federal government shutdown, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro said the only thing stopping the Republicans from funding food stamps is themselves.
DeLauro, a New Haven Democrat and the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said President Donald Trump has all the power he needs to ensure that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) pays out its November benefits to 42 million Americans as scheduled, including to 366,000 people in Connecticut.
“He can do this now,” DeLauro said in an interview. “He doesn’t have to reopen the government. We passed a law, we passed a bill, we can go. We should move forward. Get the money out.”
The salvo over SNAP funding was the latest skirmish between the two parties over who is to blame for the shutdown which began Oct. 1 after Senate Democrats refused to support a Republican-drafted bill temporarily funding the government and the GOP refused to include any Democratic priorities in exchange for their votes.
“The contingency funding that we set aside for SNAP is not optional spending,” DeLauro said Tuesday at a U.S. Capitol press conference with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, and Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat and ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee. ”It is required by the law. We appropriated that money for this purpose. The White House must spend it.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said that because of the shutdown, it will not provide SNAP funding in November, continuing to falsely claim that the dispute is over Democratic demands to provide health care subsidies for unauthorized immigrants who are banned from receiving such support under federal law.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has shut down his chamber, while the Senate continues to meet daily and regularly falls short of the 60-vote threshold to pass either the Republican spending resolution or a Democratic alternative.
Johnson accused the Democrats Tuesday of catering to its most leftist supporters by refusing to support the Republican-written legislation.
“Simply put, it’s the profound fear in the Democratic Party that drives this shutdown,” he said. “It is not principle, it’s not policy.”
But voters see things differently. In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, more registered voters blamed Republicans (45 percent), who control both houses of Congress and the presidency, than Democrats (39 percent). Another 11 percent blamed both sides equally.
Among independents, 48 percent blamed Republicans, 32 percent blamed Democrats, and 14 percent said both.
Even without reopening the government, USDA has the funds to pay the benefits next month, DeLauro said. It’s already written into federal law, she said.
In addition to a contingency fund, USDA can transfer funds from other programs to make sure all of the benefits are provided, she said.
“It’s not up for debate,” DeLauro said. “This is an administration that is lawless at its core. The money is there. Don’t let them get away with it.”
Also on Tuesday, 22 state attorneys general — including William Tong of Connecticut — and three governors sued USDA, claiming the agency violated the law by refusing to pay out the November SNAP benefits.
“Trump is stealing food from hungry Connecticut families,” Tong said. “Trump has no right to block these funds and we’re not going to let him use our families as political bargaining chips.”
Trump and congressional Republican leaders have rebuffed Democratic efforts to work out a solution to the dispute. Democrats want to roll back Republican cuts in federal subsidies for health insurance and Medicaid.
Without congressional action, a family of four earning $129,800 a year in Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes New Haven, would see annual health care premiums rising by $18,170, a 180 percent increase, according to DeLauro’s office. For the same family earning $64,000, premiums would increase by $2, 571, a 530 percent boost.
At the press conference, DeLauro mentioned a woman in her congressional district who found out her health care premiums would rise $24,000 a year.
“Can anybody here pay for that? She can’t,” DeLauro said.
Democratic demands also include ensuring that the Trump administration funds the programs Congress has allocated money for. The administration has refused to do so, an action that the Government Accountability Office says violates federal law.
DeLauro issued a report Tuesday accusing the Trump administration of taking advantage of the shutdown to cull the federal workforce, kill projects in Democratic states, and cut programs he opposes despite congressional approval of the expenditures.
Examples cited included laying off 5,500 federal employees; cutting public transportation projects in Chicago and New York City, including the Gateway Tunnel project that affects Amtrak trains from New Haven to Philadelphia and Washington; freezing $11 billion in Army Corps of Engineers contracts; ending $8 billion in energy projects in Democratic-led states; and refusing to provide $3.6 billion in Low Income Energy Assistance Program funding to help residents in Connecticut and elsewhere pay their home heating bills in winter.
“Have we been able to trust this administration on anything since January?” DeLauro said in the interview. “They have confiscated funds, they have done pocket rescissions, they have moved money around, they have done all sorts of things.”