The lawsuit two lawsuits against the USDA have reached the same conclusion. That USDA must use its 9 billion a month so they cannot pay for the program in its entirety.
Partial payments have never been issued by the USDA due to every state having to redo the math over benefits owed and that would take weeks. Monday a plan has been ordered to be presented to the court by one of the judges while the other ordered that the benefits be paid out as quickly as possible.
The plaintiffs in these two lawsuits wanted the courts to also order the USDA to use a different source called Section 32 funds which come from custom receipts so that the whole SNAP program could be covered. Both Obama appointed judges declines and said that those funds are solely in the hands of the Admin for discretion on whether or not to use them and cannot be ordered to do so.
The Justice Department has not decided whether to appeal this decision or not. USDA has hinted at there possibly being a more or less "bank run" on SNAP benefits with the use of emergency funds as everyone will try to use them before the money runs out.
A partial payment would probably cover natural-born citizens for 2 months. From the previous graph posted on this issue (can't find the post at the moment) it appeared that >60% of recipients were either foreign residents or illegals. Shouldn't natural-born citizens get priority in such a case?
States administer the programs, though. I don't think USDA knows who the recipients are, which they've been trying to get the states to tell them.
Maybe they'll give full funding to the states that have cooperated.
Yes, but I've seen in the news that many states are refusing to comply
21 states refuse to comply and 3 have sued USDA
Thats correct states know who actually gets it they more or less send the USDA more general paperwork.
#1272750
True, but USDA could say: We are giving you the money but make sure priority goes to natural born citizens.
In an ideal world, the NGO's that paid for all those illegals to come, organized the caravans, should be compelled to pay.
Yes, but they'd need to know what share of recipients are US citizens to know how to divvy up the funds. That won't be evenly distributed across states.
That and I am sure somehow in some way the NGOs and legal citizens will sue over discrimination.
The question would be if they could do that in time to stop full payments to citizens. Once the payments are made, it's kind of a moot point.
Even if the lawsuits succeed, tapping contingency funds is a short term solution, probably 3 weeks or less
Judges have no enforcement power and they don’t control the purse.
Trump can ignore the ruling and what can a judge in Rhode Island and Massachusetts do?
They can bitch and whine and that’s about it.
Sounds like USDA will be funded before this works its way through the courts
The states not USDA disburse funds to EBT recipients?
Hope people learn that we shouldn't organize society in such a way that we must rely on the government.
This whole deal is shocking to me. Are the dems really holding out to make sure illegals get benefits?!! This is crazy! (If true)
If USDA warns of a bank run on SNAP benefits it is highlighting a consumer behavior risk in addition to fiscal risk. When people fear benefits will vanish they will rush to use them which can distort spending patterns and undermine the program’s intended monthly support structure. This means the short term fix could create a burst of demand that worsens the funding crunch...