We could solve the threat of an interruption in SNAP benefits if four more Senate Dems would just agree to end the filibuster of the continuing resolution.
I think the op-ed by Sarah Pequeño over at USA Today is more than a little wrong. The headline contends, “Republicans’ refusal to fund SNAP will hurt their own voters most. They don’t care.”
Now, if the Senate could pass the continuing resolution that it has tried to pass 13 times this month, then the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program would be fully funded through November 21, just like the rest of the federal government. We could solve the threat of an interruption in SNAP benefits in about 20 minutes, if four more Senate Democrats would just agree to end the ongoing filibuster of the continuing resolution. And the House and Senate could easily pass another continuing resolution to keep SNAP funded and the government open for as long as they like.
In every vote this month, just about every Senate Republican has voted for the CR. (When it is clear the vote won’t pass, Senate Majority Leader John Thune often votes no because somebody on the winning side of the cloture vote — in this case, the side voting against cloture — has to file a “motion to reconsider” if the matter is to be taken up again.) Just about every Senate Democrat has voted no, except for John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and independent Angus King of Maine.
Pequeño writes:
It’s distressing that it has come to this point, yet Republicans don’t seem to care enough about the American people to cede any ground on federal funding. It shouldn’t just be on Democratic lawmakers to have a conscience and acquiesce to funding cuts that would be devastating to this country. Do elected Republicans not care enough about the people who voted them into office to feed them next month?
Now, when she writes “cede any ground on federal funding,” what she means is that Democrats want nearly half a trillion dollars over the next ten years to preserve “enhanced premium tax credits” for purchasing health insurance on the exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. I will remind you that these premium subsidies are currently offered to individuals with incomes above 400 percent of the federal poverty line. (For perspective, this year 400 percent of the federal poverty line is $62,600, and for a family of four is $128,600.)
Now, $488 billion seems like an awful lot of ground to cede.
She concludes, “GOP leaders have the power to end this shutdown if they come up with a compromise – it just seems unlikely that they will be the ones ceding ground.”
Democrats had the chance to make those “enhanced premium tax credits” permanent in 2021, and they didn’t do it. They had another chance in 2022, and they didn’t do it. Now they’re making a demand that they weren’t willing to even attempt back when they had complete control of the government. And somehow the Republicans are the ones being unreasonable here?