The Shadow
Democratic Tricks, Virginia Treats
Families are gearing up for Halloween!
While haunted houses and horror movies are sure to induce fear for many children, nothing excites our communities more than the tradition of trick-or-treating.
What is a season of fright becomes a candy-fueled spectacle!
Unfortunately, this year’s Halloween offers a different kind of fright for many American households.
When houses close their doors and the clock strikes midnight, many communities are at risk of losing critical access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
Why is SNAP access at risk in large portions of the United States?
The Democratic Party’s shutdown!
As Democrats drag out their shutdown antics, communities are losing access to different federal programs and services.
I mentioned in a previous e-newsletter that the Democratic Party’s shutdown poses real challenges for our communities, like rural America!
By continuing to vote time after time against the clean Republican Continuing Resolution, Democrats are holding up federal money going to community health centers and telehealth programs.
Now greater pain is coming. This time, it is in the form of restricting the hungry and the poor from getting access to food aid.
Officials around the country are sounding the alarm about SNAP coffers drying up in a matter of days.
SNAP is designed to deliver food benefits to those who suffer from food insecurity. SNAP beneficiaries tend to be on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder.
Typically, SNAP eligibility can be determined by a household’s income.
When deductions are accounted for in determining a household’s net income, the number must be at or below the poverty line.
According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2025 guidelines, the poverty line for a family of three people is $2,220 a month, or about $26,650 a year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the average monthly SNAP benefit for a family of three is $588.
Now, a source of hope and survival for folks in economically distressed areas is temporarily closed because of the Democratic Party’s desire to keep the government shut down.
What are Democrats holding out for?
One of their demands, as part of $1.5 trillion in additional federal spending, is a permanent extension of the temporary Obamacare “enhanced” premium tax credits.
Democrats signed into law these temporary boosted Obamacare subsidies and set its expiration for the end of 2025.
But now, they do not just want a simple extension, but a permanent and everlasting program.
Democrats and Virginia Democrats claim that preserving the temporary program is to prevent rising health care premium costs.
Who does this program serve?
These temporary “enhanced” subsidies are available to those who earn above 400% of the poverty line.
However, the temporary policy did not set any kind of income cap! Therefore, there is the potential for those who make well above the poverty line to receive the “enhanced” credit.
Kaiser Family Foundation finds that roughly 10% of all enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace have incomes above 400% of the poverty line!
Take our example from earlier with the family of three.
Basically, a family of three that earns above 400% of the poverty line makes more than $106,600 a year.
So Democrats are fighting for a policy to help those that make over $100,000, and if they do not get what they want, they are willing to let SNAP children go hungry.
As I said in a recent interview, you can backfill lots of programs, but you can’t backfill being hungry.
That hunger cannot be undone.
But Democrats consider American suffering as “leverage” in this shutdown fight.
How do we know?
Katherine Clark, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, said so in an interview with Fox News!
I equate it to a Middle Ages siege mentality of starving the people on the inside of the fort.
I said as much at a news event in DC on the morning of October 23.
But later that day, in Virginia at least, the siege was lifted!
Governor Youngkin declared a state of emergency in order to provide hunger relief for Virginians. The money to do so was available because of his prior fiscal restraint.
But all states can’t do that!
Governor Youngkin is imploring Virginia’s Democratic Senators to end the political games and open the government.
I believe the Democratic Party’s shutdown is just political theater in Washington and comes at the expense of America’s most vulnerable.
While this shutdown poses real challenges for hardworking Americans, I am committed to passing a clean Continuing Resolution to avoid these threats.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
