Millions of households, millions of children, across America, around Utah, are facing empty pantries and bare tables in November, and perhaps beyond.
It is through no fault of their own. It is not due to crop failure, blight, pestilence, drought, war, trade embargoes or natural disaster.
The cause of this despicable situation is a choice, a choice made by elected officials at the national and state level, to stop funding the main federal food assistance program for the working poor, children and the disabled.
Many people and agencies are stepping up to help at the margins. Donations can be made to such groups as the Utah Food Bank and the United Way. It speaks well of those making those efforts, but it will be far short of what is needed.
Understand that the ongoing government shutdown is not the cause of the cutoff. It’s camouflage.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a large reserve fund to pay the normal benefits to those who receive them from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. (That information had been available on the USDA’s website — until the administration took it down.)
Reaching into that earmarked reserve fund need not wait until the government shutdown is resolved. Neither side of the congressional aisle is standing in the way.
But the Trump administration, apparently in an effort to punish the poor — who, they may feel, don’t vote — for the sins of the rich — who pay for their campaigns — has decided not to tap that $6 billion reserve account to help those in the most need.
Keeping SNAP funds flowing would do nothing to the size of the rising federal deficit. It is money that taxpayers have already contributed to the program, placed there by officials who acted with some rare foresight to hold the poor harmless for the vagaries of federal politics.
Utah state officials say they will contribute up to $4 million to various food banks around the state. That’s something, but far short of the $33 million a month the feds pay for SNAP benefits in Utah.
Utah has a substantial reserve fund — it recently topped $1.5 billion — which it could use to make up for the feds’ parsimony. Several other states are moving to fill the gap.
Making up a month of what the feds pay for Utah SNAP benefits would cost 2% of the state’s reserve fund. It is fair to ask what better use there could be of funds set aside for a rainy day.
Look up. It’s raining.
Of course, Utah would not even be facing this choice if the feds were doing their jobs. Utah’s leaders — Gov. Spencer Cox, legislative leaders and our congressional delegation — should be demanding that the Trump administration release the SNAP reserve funds for their congressionally mandated purpose.
At any one time, some 86,000 Utah households are receiving benefits through SNAP — a program sometimes called by its previous name of “food stamps.” More than two-thirds of those families include children.
Nationally, 40 million people are able to eat each month because of SNAP. Two-thirds of them are children, the elderly or disabled. More than half of the able-bodied, working-age adults on the program have jobs that just don’t pay enough to support a decent living. Some 75% of them had worked within the previous 12 months.
The image of SNAP benefits primarily flowing to layabouts and cheats is simply false.
Some Republicans, including Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy and Josh Hawley, the Republican mega-MAGA senator from Missouri, decry the situation. Hawley has written that the poor should not be the victims of this Washington gamesmanship.
Even though these Republicans wrongly blame the logjam in Congress, not the administration, for the SNAP cutoff, Hawley is right when he says, “America is a great and wealthy nation, and our most important wealth is our generosity of spirit. We help those in need. We provide for the widow and the orphan. Love of neighbor is part of who we are. The Scripture’s injunction to ‘remember the poor’ is a principle Americans have lived by.”
As we’ve argued previously in this space, federal shutdowns should not happen. The law should provide for all federal programs to continue at the level last approved by Congress until a new budget has been agreed.
America used to be justly proud of its ability to feed the world. Now, led by an administration that takes joy in cutting off the “losers” here and abroad, we can’t — we won’t — even feed those most in need in our own communities.
How to help
There are Utah-based programs in place to help those in need. Those in need of assistance, as well as those in a position to donate funds, can contact 211 Utah, sponsored by the United Way of Salt Lake and United Way of Northern Utah, or the Utah Food Bank.
Share your story
Is your family in need of help due to the federal government shutdown or suspension of SNAP benefits? Or have you found a way to help others?
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