The Democratic Women’s Caucus calls for emergency SNAP funding

Calling the decision to halt nutrition funding that feeds 42 million Americans – 2 million of them her fellow Pennsylvanians – “not a budget problem,” but “a moral problem,” U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan and her colleagues on the congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus urged the federal government to maintain operations of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through contingency funding.

“There is a $5 billion contingency fund sitting at the Department of Agriculture right now, created for emergencies just like this one, that can be legally used to fund SNAP right now,” said Houlahan, who chairs the caucus’s Servicewomen, Women Veterans, & Military Families Task Force, in a Thursday afternoon press call. “They can unfreeze this money … They can feed our veterans and they can feed our families today; they’re just choosing not to.”

If no action is taken, SNAP will become the latest victim of the month-long federal government shutdown on Nov. 1, when existing funding is due to expire. The women’s caucus has spotlighted this issue because a majority of recipients – 26 million – are women and girls. Nearly 40% of those relying on the program for food are children, another 20% are elderly and an additional 10% have a disability.

“Here in Pennsylvania’s Sixth (Congressional) District … 88,000 of our neighbors could go hungry – 28,000 people in Chester County and nearly 60,000 in Berks,” said Houlahan. More than a million U.S. veterans – 60,000 of them in Pennsylvania – also rely on SNAP, as well as 13% of current military households, according to Houlahan, a third-generation military veteran and a ranking member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee for the Committee on Armed Services.

“In just days, we will collectively be celebrating Veterans Day,” she added. “What does it say about this administration that it’s willing to let more than a million veterans go hungry on the very day that we purportedly honor their service?”

Her caucus colleague, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, the ranking member on the Nutrition Subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee, pointed out that SNAP benefits have never been allowed to lapse since the program’s inception. During the current impasse, however, the federal government has thus far not committed to alternative funding arrangements.

“In every other previous shutdown, there has always been a commitment to states to be reimbursed, or cards had been preloaded … to make sure that people did not go hungry while these negotiations were being worked out,” said Hayes, who introduced herself as a former SNAP recipient.

One after another, the caucus members decried the Trump administration’s financial priorities, including restoring funding to the military during the shutdown. “He’s sending $40 billion to Argentina, but refusing to spend the $5 billion USDA has in the bank for SNAP. USDA also has another $30 billion in contingency funds it could utilize,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico.

Houlahan offered a personal testimony of the importance of nutrition: Early in her career, she taught chemistry at a school where 98% of students qualified for free and reduced lunch. 

“When partisan politics hurt military families and hurt people in my district – and hurt the kinds of kids that I taught – that’s not an abstract concept to me,” she said. “That’s personal.”