The Trump administration asked a court on Friday to pause Thursday’s ruling that the government must fully fund SNAP benefits while it appeals the decision.
Lawyers for the USDA argued the legality of the ruling that Judge John McConnell made directing the government to find the money to fully fund SNAP for November.
“People have gone without for too long,” the judge said at a hearing Thursday. “Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.”
He also admonished the administration for failing to obey his original ruling last week to pay benefits out of the contingency fund and that it is causing “irreparable harm”
Tyler Becker, the lawyer representing the government, asserted that the administration had started the process of providing the benefits.
“We resolved all of the burdens that the government is responsible for,” he said.
The issue is whether a federal judge can compel the government to use billions of dollars from Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935 to fund November SNAP benefits.
Lawyers claimed that “there is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions” as they argued for a stay of McConnell’s ruling. They also claimed that using that $4 billion for SNAP would take away funds needed for the WIC program.
“Indeed, if every beneficiary of a mandatory spending program could run to court and force the agency to transfer funds from elsewhere, the result would be an unworkable and conflicting plethora of injunctions that reduce the federal fisc to a giant shell game,” they argued.
But the plaintiffs in the case, a group of municipalities and non-profits, dispute the administration’s claim.
“Defendants’ bald assertion that they will face irreparable injury is entirely unsupported, and they callously disregard the grave harm that will befall Plaintiffs and millions of Americans if they succeed,” they wrote. They also noted that the $23 billion in remaining funds is more than enough to cover both WIC and SNAP.
There are a few states that have already begun disbursing November SNAP funds to their recipients. Officials from California, Wisconsin, Kansas and Pennsylvania reported that full SNAP benefits were already available to some households. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she instructed state agencies to issue full November benefits.
