Democrats Signal They’ll Hold the Line Even as SNAP Benefits Are Set to Expire

Democrats are bracing for one of the most difficult pain points in their resistance to reopening the government: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, running out of funds.

It’s a critical turning point for the shutdown debate — and one that will determine whether approximately 40 million Americans who depend on SNAP can afford food.

“We’re gonna continue to stand up for the health care of the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday when asked about the impact of SNAP’s expiration on Democrats’ shutdown position. “And I don’t know why Republicans think this is a game. This is not a game.”

Like all aspects of the shutdown thus far, the issue has quickly devolved into a political blame game. There’s little substantive debate on how to fix the impending SNAP cliff, but there are plenty of attacks to go around.

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Senate Republicans’ campaign arm said that “Americans are about to lose their SNAP benefits because Senate Democrats would rather have political leverage”; Senate Democratic leadership is hammering the Trump administration as being unwilling to deploy all the tools at its disposal to fund the program; the website for the Department of Agriculture currently displays a banner blaming Democrats for funds running out, saying: “The well has run dry.”

And a group of states is now suing the Trump administration for not releasing contingency funds that would allow the benefit to continue.

The SNAP cliff will be a harsh test of whether Democrats are willing to hold the line in the face of nationwide repercussions. Democrats’ mantra during the shutdown has been that millions of Americans are about to see their health care premiums skyrocket, and this is their rare opportunity to make sure that doesn’t happen. At the onset of the shutdown, there weren’t many pain points immediately weighing against that.

Things have changed.

Paychecks have been missed. Funding for critical government programs — from SNAP and beyond — is set to run out. The union for federal workers is calling for the shutdown to end. The health care subsidies in question are set to expire this weekend. Airports are seeing major delays as unpaid workers call out sick. Republicans have shown just as much resolve in not budging from their position as Democrats have — all while being in the majority in both chambers of Congress, and controlling the White House.

“If the Democrats just opened up the government, then we wouldn’t have to play this game where we’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the budget,” Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday in the Capitol.

Vance added: “We need five reasonable Democrats to do exactly that. We hope that they will.”

Democrats, meanwhile, argue that President Donald Trump could approve funds to be repurposed to fill SNAP through November. Republicans insist it’s not that simple. There are standalone pieces of legislation floating from both parties to try to cover SNAP benefits, but GOP leadership does not seem eager to push those bills along. In turn, Republicans are denying Democrats an opportunity to ease the political repercussions of the shutdown.

Even Sen. Josh Hawley, who is leading a bill to fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown, told reporters Tuesday: “This begs the question, why not just reopen the whole government and pay the military, pay the air traffic controllers, pay law enforcement? I mean, I continue to be baffled by my Democratic colleagues’ position on this.”

Sen. Peter Welch, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Hawley, told NOTUS it’s his sense that Republican leadership isn’t keen on giving much thought to standalone bills to fund part of the government.

When NOTUS asked Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin whether there’s concerns that SNAP benefits expiring would lead some Democrats to cave, he replied: “I don’t believe that’s a current consideration.”

But Senate Democrats themselves clearly see the need to get out ahead of the issue. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday announced that Democrats would be introducing their own bill to fund SNAP benefits, in addition to the women, infants and children, or WIC, supplemental nutrition program. Sen. Ben Ray Luján is set to spearhead that legislation.

“The hungry people, the hungry children, the hungry veterans, the hungry elderly could be fed,” Schumer said. “But Trump’s using them as hostages.”

Still, that legislation, like several other Democratic-led bills that have been introduced, is unlikely to get far. And Democrats continue to push back on questions of whether the cost of the repercussions of the shutdown will at any point outweigh the impact of rising health care premiums.

Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Monday: “There’s no good situation here. The shutdown hurts people, and an immoral, corrupt budget hurts people.”

He reiterated Democrats’ demand for Republicans to negotiate, suggesting Democrats are not inclined to budge otherwise.

“From the beginning, we’ve been willing to sit down and compromise,” Murphy said. “They are unwilling to compromise. Their approach has been ‘take it or leave it’ from the beginning.’”