Name: Government shutdown sparks food stamp panic
Uploaded: 2025-10-29T19:40:07.517Z
Duration: 4 min 11 s
Description: The ongoing government shutdown has led to heightened concerns about the distribution of food stamp benefits and the pay of federal workers, including military personnel and border agents.

The ongoing government shutdown has led to heightened concerns about the distribution of food stamp benefits and the pay of federal workers, including military personnel and border agents.

Washington

The ongoing government shutdown has led to heightened concerns about the distribution of food stamp benefits and the pay of federal workers, including military personnel and border agents. Congressman Byron Donalds attributed the shutdown to Democratic leadership, specifically citing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and criticized the lack of progress in negotiations.

Discussions also focused on long-standing benefit programs such as SNAP and WIC, with debate over the effectiveness of current work requirements for recipients. While some requirements have been reinstated, there is disagreement over their adequacy. The shutdown has prompted calls from federal workers' unions to reopen the government, as legislative efforts to ensure continued pay for essential workers have failed to pass.

Government shutdown sparks food stamp panic

Congressman Byron Donalds joins us now and I want to start with you know it's obviously we have a government shutdown and everybody's speaking political lingo for reasons and you got a lot of Republicans that are yelling about this and about food stamps because I think they're trying to do inflict some damage on Democrats for keeping the government shut as this threat looms and kind of split their base up and hurt their base. What do you make of it? Well look from the political side this is really all because of Chuck Schumer. He's trying to prove that he's tough and so yeah you have SNAP, WIC, you have military officers and military front line and the women who are not going to be paid, air traffic controllers not being paid, border patrol agents not being paid, ICE agents not being paid and that's all because Chuck's trying to demonstrate that he's a tough guy because there's really nothing else to discuss. All he said was let's leave the government open and we'll have these further conversations on all the other the other issues that are that are up for discussion but we're not going to do that during a shutdown. But on a broader level you want to talk about the food stamp program and these other benefit programs that have been existence for a long time they've really become an area where you're not seeing people getting help and coming off of those programs. There is some of that that does exist I don't want to say it doesn't exist at all but the broader concern is what happens if you have a segment of the population just continuously being on these programs that's not helpful to them it's not helpful to the American economy writ large it's not helpful for upward mobility or productivity and so there's some things that we're gonna have to look at with these programs into the future. Yeah and every time you know anybody tries to get any kind of requirement you know or proof that you can't work or that any anything like that Democrats just scream they go berserk over that because I think that that that endless entitlement is such a big part of their machine of their apparatus for power that they know they can go into they can go into public housing and come out with thousands of votes I mean that that's just such a it's a critical part of what they do. No you're right about that and look let's examine a couple things we went through the president's agenda and got that passed back in July one of the things that we did do with respect to some of these benefit entitlement programs is that we did parts are putting in honors checks like you actually had to demonstrate that you qualify there are work requirements that are back in place now the work requirements are not something that I would say is a true work requirement yeah right now it's 20 hours a week working or looking for work or volunteering or going to school qualify I think that number should be 40 hours a week like look if you're doing everything that you humanly that you can do as a human being to try to make ends meet on your own and you're just not getting there then I could see where there's some assistance that would come your way but there's a lot of work that has to be done on these programs if you're gonna have a system that does help people when they really hit a hard point in life but doesn't become something that you just continuously live on for for a decade after decade let's say that the safety net becomes something completely different in 20 hours a week is only about less than three hours a day it's certainly not a lot of effort real quick before I let you go I've got like 10 seconds left the country's largest federal workers union is demanding Democrats just reopen the government pass the CR reopen it looks like there's a chance that Schumer and Hakeem might have to do this and get absolutely nothing after wasting the last month with the government shutdown well yeah of course I mean look the other day on the Senate floor Ron Johnson put him to put an amendment on the floor that would require that all military officials as well as essential federal workers will be paid and the Democrats voted no I mean this is over what this has now become very dumb there's no strategy here whatsoever Republicans we're not gonna give in to their ridiculous demands about health care for illegal aliens we're not gonna do that and so at this point now they have their own people saying reopen the government so I anticipate this thing's gonna come to an end probably in about another week to 10 days another huge embarrassment for Schumer to just to go out there and put it all on the line like this and come back with nothing after a month of the government close boy that's that's as bad as it gets politically congressman Byron Donald's good to see you thanks so much

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