by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia politicians continued to blame each other Monday for the lapse in funding for federal food assistance, amid confusion about the government’s reaction to two federal lawsuits.
On Friday, judges ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to resume depositing funds into the accounts of recipients of a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that feeds low-income households. News reports indicate that the administration will make only partial payments.
But by the end of the workday Monday, neither the USDA nor the Georgia agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, had updated old public messaging on their websites to clarify the status of the funding.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” said a banner that has been atop the USDA website since last month. It was posted in response to the government shutdown that started Oct. 1.
The website of Georgia’s Department of Human Services had not updated two messages from Oct. 24 about SNAP. The first said the electronic benefits cards that recipients use to spend their subsidy would stop working Nov. 1. Another clarified that recipients could still spend unused benefits in their accounts after that deadline.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the state agency had no new information. “We will continue to follow official guidance from USDA as it becomes available,” Ellen Brown said in an email. “We understand how important SNAP benefits are to Georgia families and are closely monitoring the situation.”
The lack of clarity about whether people will be able to put food on the table this month has caused significant anxiety, said Eliza McCall, the chief programming officer for Second Harvest of South Georgia.
The food bank serves more than a dozen counties in South Georgia and typically gets maybe five calls a week from people seeking food, she said. That number rose to 25 during the first three days of last week, she said, doubling to 28 on Thursday.
“People are scared,” McCall said. “People are extremely nervous and that’s completely understandable because the uncertainty and the instability do not breed confidence.”
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans were trading blows, blaming the other side for a looming food shortage.
The Trump administration announced late last month that it would freeze SNAP funding because of the refusal by Democrats in Congress to approve a continuing resolution to fund the federal budget.
Democrats then blamed Republicans for refusing to negotiate terms for approval, mainly the restoration of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage. Premiums are expected to skyrocket in January without those credits.
SNAP recipients were “dragged into this fight” by Trump and Republicans in Congress, Sen. Raphael Warnock, one of Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, told reporters at a neighborhood grocery store in Atlanta Monday.
“They are literally pitting sick people against hungry people. I can’t think of anything more craven than that,” Warnock said. “This is a manufactured crisis by the Trump administration aided and abetted by Washington Republicans.”
On the other side, U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican representing part of South Georgia, blamed U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader of the Senate, who has orchestrated numerous votes against a continuing resolution.
Scott, sounding like Warnock, called the shutdown and its effect on SNAP benefits and other programs a “manufactured” disaster, but he blamed it on Democrats. In a statement emailed Monday, he suggested that the shutdown and its effects would not end soon because of them.
“Because of their refusal to fund the government, women and children who need assistance will struggle to purchase food for Thanksgiving,” Scott said.
