The payment, non-payment, partial payment of SNAP benefits has been a legal and political rollercoaster during the shutdown of the federal government. The impact though has been immediate on the West Side.
Danny Davis, the 7th District congressman, is back in Chicago due to the shutdown. He spoke last week to Austin Weekly News saying that any one-time or partial payouts of benefits while welcome does not solve the dilemma.
“It might take us through one month but that’s not salvation,” Davis said. “I’m saying that does not really solve the problem. It might solve it for some families for a brief period but then if it’s one month, what happens when December comes” One could say it could provide more negotiation time, but SNAP is not the only thing we’re concerned about.
Proposed Medicaid cuts are just as concerning as the SNAP benefits cuts.
The House-passed version of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, would leave nearly 11 million without health coverage by 2034, mostly due to cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, the Congressional Budget Office estimated back in June.
The Senate version of the bill makes $930 billion in cuts over a decade to Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. The House-passed bill includes nearly $800 billion in cuts.
“The impact may not be as immediate, but whether you die of starvation or lack of medical care, you’ll still die,” Davis said, pointing out the dire implication of the proposed cuts.
“Denying food to individuals who need it is one of the most cruel and inhumane acts that one can perpetrate,” Davis said of the Trump administration. “It is insidious and uncharacteristic of what a nation like the United States of America should be engaged in but here we are.”
With a cost of more than $8 billion per month nationally, the government reportedly has said the emergency fund it will use to fund the SNAP program in the short-term has $4.65 billion, enough to cover about half the normal benefits for one month.
“The only way that we cannot experience the cuts even if they didn’t happen next week, they might happen next month unless we change the projections and change the allocations that Republicans are trying to get approved in the Big Ugly Bill, ” Davis said, referring to Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
Part of the reason for the shutdown is because Democrats in the House and Senate and I, voted against the Big Ugly Bill Davis said.
“Republicans with the majority voted for it and passed it,” he said. “Fortunately, in the Senate, there are enough Democrats to block implementation of this bill unless enough of them vote in the Senate. Up to this point they are continuing to say no, we are not going to vote for this bill.”
Democrats will continue to fight until there is an opportunity to negotiate, Davis told the Weekly.
“I don’t know what negotiations will produce but we know what we want. We want restoration of Medicaid cuts, although that’s not going to save those hospitals that are already at the point of closure or those programs that have been disrupted. We also want the SNAP benefits restored.”
It’s hard to understand what the Trump administration is trying to accomplish, Davis said, adding that it’s as if legitimate leadership has been hijacked.
Davis said he was happy to see the willingness of people at the five churches he visited on a recent Sunday that were willing to help and donate to those in need. Practically all of the churches were talking about how individuals could help.