Democrats seize on food stamp funding as latest rallying cry
Source: Roll Call
Posted October 29, 2025 at 6:46pm
A funding lapse for food stamps, set to hit next week, became a new focus for Democrats on Wednesday as the partial government shutdown enters its fifth week with no resolution in sight. In a rare diversion from their single-minded focus on extending expiring health insurance subsidies, Senate Democrats introduced legislation to continue funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, during the shutdown.
And in a series of news conferences, they accused the Trump administration of “weaponizing hunger” by refusing to tap a contingency fund to pay SNAP benefits for more than 41 million Americans who depend on food assistance. “The Republicans have been on a crusade against SNAP all year,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “They slashed it by $200 billion this summer to pay for their tax cuts for billionaires. So they’ve never wanted SNAP, and they don’t want it now. Again, they’re using these 40 million innocent people as pawns.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., introduced a bill that would fund both SNAP and the related Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, while also ensuring that states would be reimbursed for costs incurred for administering SNAP and WIC during the shutdown. Democrats seized on the issue after the Trump administration reversed its stance on a plan for covering the cost of the SNAP benefits.
The Agriculture Department’s initial shutdown plan indicated that the USDA’s contingency fund, which Democrats and outside groups say contains more than $5 billion, could be used to fund food stamps during the shutdown. But the agency reversed course last week and deleted that plan from its website, saying it couldn’t tap into the funding to pay food benefits after all. “It’s bullshit. I’ll say it,” Luján said at a news conference in describing the administration’s reversal. “I come from a small farm. I know the difference [between] good soil and the bullshit that goes in it, and this is the bullshit.”
Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/10/29/democrats-seize-on-food-stamp-funding-as-latest-rallying-cry/
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