AG Campbell: Trump should have fully funded SNAP benefits for Mass.
The federal government's decision to provide only partial food aid assistance for more than 40 million Americans, including some 1.1 million in the Bay State, is "an intentional policy choice" that could have been avoided, state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell said Tuesday.
"This is mainly children, seniors on fixed income, veterans, people with disabilities," Campbell said of the Trump administration's response to a federal court's order that it pay out benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. "This is problematic in a few different ways."
"So they didn't do that," Campbell told WGBH-FM's "Boston Public Radio" program . "What's also worse is not only do they have the money, this is the first time in the history of this country, whether a Democrat or Republican president, where you have ever had SNAP benefits not funded — even during a government shutdown. It has never happened. So this is an intentional policy choice."
The comments from Campbell, a Democrat, came before President Donald Trump suggested that the government w ould not pay out SNAP benefits until after Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill end a five-week-old government shutdown.
Hours later, a spokesperson for the Republican White House contradicted Trump's comments , warning benefit recipients that it would "take some time to receive this money."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would draw down a contingency fund — totaling about $4.65 billion — that would cover about half of the monthly benefit using a SNAP contingency fund, Roll Call reported .
Massachusetts receives about $240 million a month to cover the cost of SNAP in the Bay State. Last week, the Healey administration said it would advance the state's food banks an additional $4 million to help provide food in November.
Last week, Campbell, joined by two dozen Democratic officials nationwide, filed a lawsuit seeking to force the administration to continue paying benefits. Separately, a federal judge in Rhode Island also was asked to force the administration to keep the program operating.
"We're doing our best to get the money out as soon as possible," Campbell told the station. "Based on our conversations here in Massachusetts, it looks like folks could get relief, maybe, in about a week."
Speaking to reporters after an unrelated event in Boston on Monday, Gov. Maura Healey said the state will load electronic benefit cards for SNAP recipients as soon as the federal government makes the money available.
"When they release the funds, the state will quickly work to load the cards that people have," the Democratic governor said as she left an event at the Old South Meeting House. "That does take a couple of days to do so."
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