The House returns to Washington on Wednesday after an extended President’s Day recess. The languorous pace belies that the federal government is prepared to run out of funding for the fourth time since September. Worse still is one of the major issues making a partial shutdown more likely: a dispute over how to address a shortfall in funding to ensure poor mothers can feed themselves and their newborns.
A government shutdown is a hard sell for politicians even in the most righteous of circumstances. And thanks to a (frankly baffling) strategy from Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., only some of the government will run out of funding if four spending bills aren’t signed into law before the 12:01 a.m. Saturday threshold. But even Republicans know that they risk massive blowback should they allow the lights to go off at, say, the Department of Veterans Affairs because they don’t want to help mothers care for their babies.
Rising food prices and more sign-ups from eligible parents have placed a major strain on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — better known as WIC. The program faces a shortfall of roughly $1 billion; if not fully funded, states may have to turn away mothers and children within weeks. To avoid this, Senate Democrats have opted to add a White House-requested increase in funding to the spending bill that funds the Department of Agriculture, which oversees WIC and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.
That relatively small boost has House Republicans wanting changes of their own in exchange. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the USDA, has demanded a potential shift in how SNAP benefits work. Under Harris’ proposed pilot program, SNAP would only be able to be used to purchase only “nutrient-dense” foods, rather than snacks and sodas. That shift would transform grocery store cashiers into “the…
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