After celebrating a Halloween bash at the White House with superhero cosplayers and his own lookalikes, US President Donald Trump is off to Mar-a-Lago for another Halloween party. But for many Americans, the festive cheer has been dampened by the very real fear of losing food stamp benefits.
With the US government shutdown crossing the 30-day mark, assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has dried up, putting a whopping 41.7 million Americans at risk.
In fact, the situation has become so dire that relatively better off Americans reportedly started handing out shelf-stable family food like ramen, macaroni, and canned soups instead of candy to trick-or-treaters this Halloween, anticipating difficult times ahead of SNAP-dependent households.
Used by one in eight low-income Americans, SNAP is a major part of the social safety net in the US and helps many families bring food to the table.
However, Trump seems unwilling to budge: even as two US courts directed the administration to keep funding SNAP despite the shutdown, the US President said, “Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available (sic),” before quickly blaming Chuck Schumer and “Radical Democrats” for making Americans go hungry.
The US government shutdown currently hinges on an impasse over healthcare spending: while Republicans want to pass a spending bill at current budget levels, Democrats want additional money included to support healthcare programmes.
Further, despite Trump’s allegations that Democrats are squarely to blame for the shutdown, some Republican lawmakers reportedly feel that Trump should come to the negotiating table to end the shutdown that has left millions of poor Americans at risk and many federal workers struggling to meet ends meet.
As it stands, 730,000 federal employees in the US are working without pay, while another 670,000 are furloughed without pay, as per data by Washington-based think tank Bipartisan Policy Center.
Although another 830,000 federal employees are still getting paid (due to their offices being self-funded or because there is other money to use), the 1.4 million federal workers who haven’t received their salaries are in dire straits and unsure of how long they can hold out, reported The New York Times.
Yet, Trump remains resolute: speaking to reporters on Friday about the shutdown, the US President briefly said, “People don’t get good health care and their premiums go up every single year. So we should change it.”
He then quickly pivoted to his plans for the evening, telling the media, “Tonight, we have a big celebration of Halloween, and I’ll see you later.”
