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The Home returns to Washington on Wednesday after an prolonged President’s Day recess. The languorous tempo belies that the federal authorities is prepared to run out of funding for the fourth time since September. Worse nonetheless is likely one of the main points making a partial shutdown extra probably: a dispute over the way to deal with 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 essentially the most righteous of circumstances. And because of a (frankly baffling) strategy from Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., solely a number of the authorities will run out of funding if 4 spending payments aren’t signed into regulation earlier than the 12:01 a.m. Saturday threshold. However even Republicans know that they danger large blowback ought to they permit the lights to go off at, say, the Division of Veterans Affairs as a result of they don’t need to assist moms care for his or her infants.
Rising meals costs and more sign-ups from eligible parents have positioned a serious pressure on the Particular Supplemental Diet Program for Girls, Infants and Kids — higher referred to as WIC. This system faces a shortfall of roughly $1 billion; if not totally funded, states may have to turn away mothers and children within weeks. To keep away from this, Senate Democrats have opted so as to add a White Home-requested improve in funding to the spending invoice that funds the Division of Agriculture, which oversees WIC and the Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP), previously referred to as meals stamps.
That comparatively small enhance has Home Republicans wanting modifications of their very own in trade. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the Home Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the USDA, has demanded a possible shift in how SNAP advantages work. Beneath Harris’ proposed pilot program, SNAP would solely be capable of be used to purchase only “nutrient-dense” foods, slightly than snacks and sodas. That shift would remodel grocery retailer 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 final week.
It’s not an incredible signal that this holdup is happening over one thing that must be as uncontroversial as stopping new moms from needing to hitch a waitlist to see in the event that they’ll be capable of afford groceries and method. Congressional leaders have been hopeful after a Tuesday meeting at the White House that any partial shutdown might be averted, however the timing crunch might necessitate yet one more short-term funding invoice. Even that isn’t a assure, as there’s nonetheless an opportunity that a persevering with decision runs into hurdles forward of the deadline.
It’s not an incredible signal that this holdup is happening over one thing that must be as uncontroversial as stopping new moms from needing to hitch a waitlist to see in the event that they’ll be capable of afford groceries and method.
With out one other funding extension, a partial shutdown’s affect will rely upon how lengthy it lasts. As shutdowns have grow to be increasingly more frequent, Congress has begun baking in methods to keep away from the worst impacts. Veterans may be assured that they'll still access health care because of funding mechanisms put into place in 2011. Likewise, a 2019 regulation assured that federal staff who're furloughed will get again pay as soon as a shutdown ends. And the SNAP program has emergency contingency funding that will make sure that not less than March’s advantages might be coated.
Accordingly, a shutdown that solely lasts the weekend would have a minimal affect. However the longer it stretches on — even when solely the week earlier than the remainder of the federal government’s funding expires on March 8 — the extra noticeable it can grow to be. Whereas well being care will nonetheless be accessible to vets, the VA’s regional profit workplaces can be shut down, doubtlessly delaying help. The division can be unable to put everlasting headstones or preserve the grounds on the nationwide cemeteries it oversees. The opposite companies whose funding is about to lapse — together with the Meals and Drug Administration, the Division of Transportation and the Division of Housing and City Improvement — would additionally see 1000's of staff furloughed and potential lapses in providers.
It’s quite a lot of complications for lots of people which can be simply avoidable. Republicans have begun to acknowledge that they lack the leverage to push by means of a few of their most dangerous coverage calls for. However the standoff over WIC funding reveals that they’re nonetheless not executed making an attempt to wring each final horrible coverage out of their intransigence, irrespective of how a lot it makes them appear like villains.
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