At the end of the month, food stamp benefits will run out for 38.6 million recipients on account of the partial government shutdown. Right now, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program is being funded with previously appropriated dollars, but in February that will change as the Department of Agriculture remains unfunded for Fiscal Year 2019.
It could be resolved in five minutes. But it won’t be because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are siding with illegal aliens to block funding for the southern border wall.
Would they keep the border wide open so that drugs can be smuggled and gangs and human trafficking can run rampant rather than help needy families keep their children’s bellies full? Really?
Much of the crime brought on by illegal immigration disproportionately winds up in the very poorer communities that depend on food stamps.
We’re talking about 19.4 million households including 38.6 million individual recipients who receive $4.7 billion of SNAP benefits monthly.
There are also hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are going without pay for the duration of the shutdown. They have bills to pay, too.
Are Pelosi and Schumer willing to sacrifice them all on the altar of stopping the wall? It’s a choice, and it is their choice to make.
President Trump has already stated he won’t sign a spending bill that doesn’t fund the wall. Plus, he just issued the first veto threat of his presidency. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rightly said he won’t be acting on legislation that won’t become law.
But even if McConnell did let it pass in the Senate, Congressional Republicans in the House and the Senate appeared poised to sustain any veto Trump might issue.
So, that’s it.
In 2013, Republicans learned they could not impose their will on the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House. Back then, a Republican-controlled House did not get to pass legislation that excluded funding for Obamacare and when the government shut down over the dispute, it was deemed the House’s fault.
Perhaps Pelosi and Schumer are gambling that President Donald Trump and Republicans will get the blame politically by the media, but really, it will be their fault for blocking the only legislation that can get signed.
Right now, Republicans control the Senate and the White House. Democrats cannot impose their will, either. This one lands at the feet of the House, too, going by the same standard set up in 2013. Elections have consequences.
Or they had better, or else we truly live in a bipolar world where one set of rules apply to Democrats and another to Republicans.
Right now, Democrats are hoping to split Republicans by voting to fund everything but the Department of Homeland Security. The White House has again issued a veto threat of any package of bills that excludes the wall. The President needs to stick to that — and address the nation in a primetime broadcast to explain the human costs and tragedies at the border and across the country involved with not building the southern border wall.
Because, none of this is necessary. There’s a very easy way for Pelosi and Schumer to get the government funded: Build the wall. And fully fund it now, so we don’t have to have the same dilemma again in September. Put the country first.
There is already almost 700 miles of barriers, fences and walls along the southern border anyway. What’s another 300 miles or so?
Every budget is a matter of priorities, after all.
Is enabling illegal immigration, drugs and human trafficking with open borders worth it to compel tens of millions of American citizens go without food and hundreds of thousands of federal workers to go without pay? That is for Pelosi and Schumer to decide. This one’s on them.
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Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Photo “Nancy Pelosi” by Nancy Pelosi.
Photo “Chuck Schumer” by Chuck Schumer.Â
People want to blame our president the problem here is not president trump its the criminals Dems to blame they are not worried about protecting the America people they are worried more about protecting the illegals. HOLD THERE PAY CHECKS UNTIL THEY CAN START PUTTING AMERICANS FIRST AND DO THERE JOB AND WORK WITH OUR PRESIDENT AND BUILD THE WALL!!
F-ALL THEM ILLEGAL ALIENS! I AM SICK OF MY TAX DOLLARS GOING TO A BUNCH OF LAZY PEOPLE LOOKING FOR A HANDOUT! LYING TO GET ASSISTANCE! WHILE MANY LEGAL ALIENS AND AMERICANS GO WITHOUT!! DEMOCRATS ARE A BUNCH OF A-HOLES FOR GIVING ILLEGAG ALIENS ASSISTANCE OVER AMERICAN CITIZENS! ALL FOR THEIR ILLEGAL VOTES! CROOKED MONSTERS! THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY ARE ON TO YOU!! EVEN DEMOCRAT CITIZENS OF AMERICA ARE GOING WITHOUT BECAUSE OF THE ILLEGALS POURING IN TO THIS COUNTRY! DEMOCRAT CITIZENS, WHAT DOES THIS TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR LEADERS WHO TOOK AN OATH TO PROTECT YOU? TELLS ME THAT THEY ARE IN IT FOR THEMSELVES! THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!
Build the wall and the the houses’ paychecks until they do!!!
Amen. I say take their checks and give it to the people who are going hungry.by the way get pelosi out of the government yesterday.she is senile and anyone with any sense can see it, and get her sidekick too.they want to run the country and to h__l with the president the people voted in.im so mad at these two people If it was left up to me i would let them starve like little kids will. He owes $8,000 in child support I don’t
I firmly believe global warming is real this world is destroying the ozone due to gross polluting the world and Forest.. people in this country that are legal should only get SNAP food stamps welfare or any government funding only if they’re disabled…
That’s a crock of s hit. Many snap participants work and use snap benefits as a supplement. Very judgemental comment.