Tony Romm, The New York Times ; Trump Administration Demands States ‘Undo’ Work to Send Full Food Stamps
[Kip Currier: Where are the corporations that can provide at least some of the monies that could contribute to food assistance efforts for people in need, but instead will soon subject us to weeks of obscenely expensive holiday-themed self-congratulatory ads telling us how much they really care about people and all the wonderful charitable things they do for the world?
Where are the American tech billionaires who with a fragment of their wealth could even temporarily fund SNAP benefits for the 40 million Americans who depend upon food aid to survive? At least three of them (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos) were at the November 8th James Bond-themed 70th birthday party for Kris Jenner hosted by Amazon's Bezos.
The individual and collective silence of American billionaires and companies speaks volumes about their priorities and allegiances.
That the nation with the highest GDP on the planet would subject its food insecure citizens to even one day without food aid is utter madness and indicative of the moral bankruptcy of those who have the most assets and the least to lose by sharing their good fortune with those who are less fortunate.]
[Excerpt]
"The Trump administration told states that they must “immediately undo” any actions to provide full food stamp benefits to low-income families, in a move that added to the chaos and uncertainty surrounding the nation’s largest anti-hunger program during the government shutdown.
The Agriculture Department issued the command late Saturday in a memo, which The New York Times later viewed. That guidance threatened to impose harsh financial penalties on states that did not “comply” quickly with the new federal orders.
The memo surprised, vexed and frustrated many state leaders, and by Sunday, some had begun to explore their legal options to prevent any further disruptions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. But the Trump administration held firm in its refusal to fund food stamps in full, telling a court in a strongly worded filing that states would be “responsible for the consequences” of their actions.
Caught in the middle were the roughly one in eight Americans who depend on monthly federal assistance to purchase groceries — aid that has been imperiled for days in a record-long shutdown. Multiple lawsuits to loosen that money remained unresolved, leaving many families at growing risk of hunger and financial hardship.
Some of the 42 million people enrolled in SNAP began to receive their full benefits on Friday, after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the program this month amid the shutdown. New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were among states that raced to release the aid to residents, some of whom had been without nutrition assistance for days."
