To the editor:
Let’s call the current food stamp crisis for what it is: President Trump and congressional Republicans are starving working Americans and their children so they can let them later suffer even more from a lack of affordable healthcare.
The administration could use emergency reserves to keep Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits flowing, but they refuse, with the disingenuous claim that it is not legally allowed. When the government shut down in 2019 during the first Trump administration, it used the same reserve funds it now claims are off limits. At the time, Trump’s secretary of agriculture announced, “It works and is legally sound.”
A federal court in Massachusetts just ruled that the Trump administration is acting unlawfully. Massachusetts was one of the states that brought suit against the administration in order to, as our Democratic Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell put it, “feed our residents.” In Berkshire County, 22,000 residents will find it harder to put food on the table because of Trump’s unlawful suspension of benefits, and the local economy will suffer as well with less money flowing to grocers and farmers.
Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House. They could end the government shutdown tomorrow if they chose. But they would rather hold low-income working Americans hostage than negotiate with Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson said as much, telling CNN that funding SNAP “will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it.” By “all of it,” Johnson means agreeing to reopen the government without any concessions to help the American public.
And what concessions are Democrats seeking? To continue tax credits so that 22 million working Americans are not faced with a doubling of Obamacare health insurance premiums and to guarantee that congressional budget appropriations are actually spent by the Trump administration as intended for the benefit of all Americans, regardless of who they voted for.
Democrats are right to continue holding out for a restoration of Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance subsidies. Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are negotiating in bad faith, demanding that Democrats agree to reopen the government before they talk. But it was Republicans who refused to extend the ACA premium tax credits in the budget bill passed earlier this year. They also reduced SNAP benefits, making it harder in particular for younger Americans to qualify.
Considering that President Trump routinely refuses to spend appropriations that do not fit his agenda, mandating that congressional appropriations be spent is justified and necessary to fund public health, public education, food safety, and countless other programs that improve the welfare of everyday Americans.
Budgets are a statement of values. It is clear where Republicans stand: against reducing food insecurity and affordable healthcare but in favor of giving huge tax breaks to the rich.
Jonathan Perloe
Great Barrington
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