Washington - While millions of Americans do not know how they will pay for their food this month, Donald Trump\u2019s administration is once again turning to the Supreme Court of the United States. The goal is to keep full payments in the federal SNAP program - the nation\u2019s main food aid program - frozen as long as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history continues. It is a move that may appear legally intricate but in truth marks a moral rupture: the deliberate instrumentalization of hunger as a political weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s actions are not a legal strategy but a late, almost shabby act of revenge - driven by defiance, not by logic. For in the budget compromise reached in principle on November 9, it has already been established that funds for SNAP will be released immediately once the shutdown ends. In other words: even if the Supreme Court decides in the coming days, the question is in fact moot. The funds will flow anyway once Congress reopens the government.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For weeks, the courts have been arguing over whether the program must continue to pay out in full. SNAP - officially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - provides for about 42 to 44 million people in the United States, many of whom have already received no benefits since the beginning of November. Three federal judges - in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia - ordered the government to continue disbursing food aid. The court in Rhode Island made it clear that the government \u201cmust release the funds on time or as soon as possible for the November payments,\u201d that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is obligated to continue full payments. In Rhode Island, Federal Judge John J. McConnell on Thursday ordered full funding by Friday - whereupon several states loaded their EBT cards within hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n