Oh SNAP — More Judicial Diktats
Senate Democrats are keeping the government closed, and Donald Trump is not a king. Nevertheless, two district judges claim the authority to open the spigot for food stamps.
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government,” said James Madison, the author of the Constitution. It is not the federal government’s job to take money from our paychecks and give it to people who don’t earn a paycheck.
Yet on Friday, two federal district judges ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay for food stamps, even though the Constitution does not authorize it and the government is shut down. Democrats in 25 states and DC had sued.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) covers some or all of the grocery budget for roughly 42 million Americans. Forty-two million. Roughly a third of recipients earn a paycheck, and the annual bill for “free” groceries junk food came in just shy of $100 billion last year.
That funding, along with virtually all other government funds, ran out on September 30 because Senate Democrats have continued blocking — 13 separate times — a continuing resolution to fund the government. They’re holding food stamp recipients, government employees, and military personnel hostage because they demand a permanent expansion of generous ObamaCare subsidies.
Let me put that another way: We’re not paying our military personnel, who are fulfilling one of the few specifically enumerated powers of the Constitution, because Democrats want to take your money and give it to someone else for unconstitutional expenditures like food and health insurance.
And U.S. District Judge John McConnell orders that the food stamps be paid for, government shutdown or no. Likewise, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani gave the administration until today to explain how it will use the USDA’s $5 billion emergency fund.
“There is a contingency fund at USDA,” admitted Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, “but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn’t even cover, I think half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP.”
Update: The Trump administration on Monday afternoon agreed to pay half of SNAP benefits using that fund.
It seems to me that if a district judge can order the government to pay for food stamps because of … reasons … then the government shouldn’t be permitted to close at all. What is the limiting principle here?
It’s not that I or anyone else wants people to go without food or other necessities. Far from it. As a conservative advocate of constitutionally limited government, however, I don’t believe it’s the federal government’s role in the first place, much less when that government isn’t even operating.
I’ll also admit that ship has sailed. The federal government does and is going to continue taking my tax dollars and giving them to someone else. Still, as the great economist Thomas Sowell once wrote, “Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life.”
Democrats have excelled at making dependency a way of life for millions. Thus, the program needs urgent reform, which Rollins acknowledges. She posted on X:
On my first day @USDA, we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused — and two SUED US FOR ASKING! 🤦🏻♀️
And guess what? In just the states that cooperated, we’ve already uncovered massive fraud.
The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census.
There’s a new sheriff in town. @POTUS will not tolerate waste, fraud, or abuse while hardworking Americans go hungry.
Beyond that, last week, our Samantha Koch highlighted the entitled brats who took to social media to threaten to rob Walmart if they don’t get their SNAP cards reloaded. That’s toddler behavior with a criminal flair.
Even with all of this truth about the Constitution and the waste, etc., Democrats have an easy time convincing voters that Republicans are the bullies who take away people’s lunch money. With big elections in Virginia and New Jersey tomorrow, that could spell trouble for the GOP — especially when most Republicans can’t seem to be bothered making the conservative or policy case against SNAP.
