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 food police, telling parents what they can and cannot feed their families,” the National Grocers Association wrote in a letter to congressional leaders last week.
It’s not a great sign that this holdup is taking place over something that should be as uncontroversial as preventing new mothers from needing to join a waitlist to see if they’ll be able to afford groceries and formula. Congressional leaders were hopeful after a Tuesday meeting at the White House that any partial shutdown could be avoided, but the timing crunch may necessitate yet another short-term funding bill. Even that isn’t a guarantee, as there’s still a chance that a continuing resolution runs into hurdles ahead of the deadline.
It’s not a great sign that this holdup is taking place over something that should be as uncontroversial as preventing new mothers from needing to join a waitlist to see if they’ll be able to afford groceries and formula.
Without another funding extension, a partial shutdown’s impact will depend on how long it lasts. As shutdowns have become more and more common, Congress has begun baking in ways to avoid the worst impacts. Veterans can be assured that they can still access health care thanks to funding mechanisms put into place in 2011. Likewise, a 2019 law guaranteed that federal employees who are furloughed will get back pay once a shutdown ends. And the SNAP program has emergency contingency funding that would ensure that at least March’s benefits will be covered.
Accordingly, a shutdown that only lasts the weekend would have a minimal impact. But the longer it stretches on — even if only the week before the rest of the government’s funding expires on March 8 — the more noticeable it will become. While health care will still be available to vets, the VA’s regional benefit offices would be shut down, potentially delaying assistance. The department would be unable to place permanent headstones or maintain the grounds at the national cemeteries it oversees. The other agencies whose funding is set to lapse — including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development — would also see thousands of workers furloughed and potential lapses in services.
It’s a lot of headaches for a lot of people that are easily avoidable. Republicans have begun to acknowledge that they lack the leverage to push through some of their most harmful policy demands. But the standoff over WIC funding shows that they’re still not done trying to wring every last terrible policy out of their intransigence, no matter how much it makes them look like villains.