We’ve got a compromise on the shutdown: What happens with SNAP?

Donald Trump has an odd personal vested interest in making sure the federal government doesn’t process SNAP benefits to the 42 million Americans who rely on them to put food on the table.

With the government shutdown winding down, we’re getting emails from readers with their own personal vested interest in the near-term future of SNAP, having to do with the food on the table thing.

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ICYMI

• Trump’s USDA wants states to ‘undo’ efforts to issue full SNAP benefits
• No food for you: Trump says government will not release SNAP funds
• Virginia pauses weekly SNAP aid; feds to kick in 65 percent this week

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Part of this would seem to hinge on the timing of votes in the U.S. Senate, and then the U.S. House, to end the shutdown.

But as I say that, I’m reading that the Trump administration was back in front of the Supreme Court on Monday to keep full payments frozen while the government is shut down.

In case you weren’t already there, yes, the cruelty is the thing.

Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat U.S. senator who helped craft the Senate compromise that has the end to the shutdown nigh – citing as a key motivating factor his desire to see the government resume sending out full SNAP benefits, stat – is as confused as the rest of us when it comes to why the administration is continuing to play hardball.

“Here’s my sense. There was enough money in the contingency account at the USDA to pay SNAP benefits, full SNAP benefits, to all beneficiaries for about three full weeks in November, when the contingency fund would then run dry,” Kaine told reporters on a conference call on Monday. “President Trump made a cruel decision, in my view, to not allow those funds to be used, even though Congress put those monies in that fund just for this purpose, and the USDA website also acknowledged that this contingency fund is to be used to pay SNAP benefits during any lapse in funding. President Trump cruelly decided to withhold the monies, but he’s been ordered by two courts to actually release the funds.”

“From a math standpoint, there’s enough dollars in there in that contingency fund to pay full SNAP benefits, probably through Thanksgiving, and we should be done long before that,” Kaine said, projecting a Senate vote on the shutdown-ending compromise “either later today or tomorrow,” and a House vote later this week.

“So, I have a feeling, by the end of this week, which I guess would be like the, maybe, I don’t know, 15th or 16th, or something like that, the bill will be over on the president’s desk, so there should be enough funds to cover everyone, unless President Trump decides that he wants to play games with hungry families and kids. One out of eight Americans get SNAP benefits. It’s the most economically stressed people, about 60 percent are, you know, mothers and children. President Trump shouldn’t play games with the money, especially now that we’ve got the full year fix coming his way,” Kaine said.