An esteemed one 42 million Americans receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called SNAP. That’s more than one in 10 citizens who depend on government assistance to pay for food. This level of dependency is alarming: We need to improve our economic, educational and employment systems so that more people can live independently and do not need government assistance to meet the necessities of life.
However, reforming SNAP and our welfare system is an issue once again. Right now, the priority is to reopen the government and restore funding for these programs to prevent serious harm to those who depend on them. No one believes that the way to reduce dependency is simply to cut off funding for people in need at just days’ notice.
Black single mother and her daughter placing products in a supermarket checkout
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However, that is exactly what will happen if the Senate does not pass the continuing resolution passed by the House that would reopen the government. Authorization for government funding it’s over on October 1, 2025, and since then, the administration has been working hard to minimize the pain for the American people during this shutdown. The White House enlisted generous private donors keep the military paid and reallocate funding to prevent other critical groups from being hit, such as new mothers using the Women and Infants (WIC) program. But options have run out, especially for a program as large and expensive as SNAP, which requires $9 billion in funding every month.
Unfortunately, while the administration is trying to ease the pain created by the shutdown in Washington, Democratic leaders are admitting that they are doing the opposite. House Minority Whip Tom Emmer publicly recognized how losing SNAP benefits will give Democrats “leverage” to force the White House to make concessions and repeal provisions of the recently passed tax cut for working families;
This is not business as usual in Washington. In fact, it’s quite unusual. Under President Biden, Congress passed thirteen continuing resolutions of this type intended to maintain government funding beyond the normal appropriations period. Those resolutions previously received 96% of the Democratic vote. And yet today, under President Trump, when the stakes include SNAP and millions of food-insecure Americans, Democrats are breaking with tradition by trying to use American pain to advance their policy preferences.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, speaks with members of the House Republican leadership during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, October 29, 2025. With the government shutdown now in its 29th day, the spending standoff in Congress is piling on the pain for the Democratic senator. (Photo by Jim WATSON/AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
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Americans can learn many lessons from what is unfolding in Washington. First, they should recognize that our bloated federal spending programs cannot be relied upon. If Democrats are willing today to allow food aid to end in hopes of scoring political points against the President, then Americans should be prepared that this could happen again, and again, in the future whenever it is politically expedient. Responsible members of Congress should work with the administration and the states to explore how to return control, including direct funding, of these types of welfare programs at the state level so that Washington politicians cannot again hold hungry Americans hostage.
They should also consider the priorities of those Senators currently awaiting the continuing decision and preventing the government from reopening. They say they want President Trump to restore about a trillion dollars in federal subsidies for ObamaCare premiums. These are subsidies that don’t just go to low-income Americans, but to those who are relatively well-off. More centrally, they go straight into the pockets of the insurance companies that worked with President Obama and congressional Democrats to create the ObamaCare system that has made insurance premiums ever higher. United Nationsaffordable, thus requiring additional rounds of federal bailouts.
Instead of dumping trillions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of health insurers, Washington should reform the fundamentally dysfunctional ObamaCare system so that insurance isn’t so prohibitively expensive in the first place. Americans should keep this in mind every time they hear Senate Leader Schumer bring up funding ObamaCare—that’s funding a system he created that now needs another bailout.
ObamaCare, SNAP, and all the ineffective and burdensome federal programs housed in Washington that are now “leverage” in the Democrats’ shutdown games must be reviewed and reformed so that the vulnerable people who depend on them are not left in this precarious position in the future. This conversation needs to start soon. But first, Democrats need to stop holding SNAP hostage and vote to reopen the government.
