House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that $5 billion in contingency funds likely cannot be used by the federal government to cover the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is set to expire on Nov. 1.
“The SNAP benefits is a unique situation. I got a summary of the whole legal analysis, and it looks legitimate to me, that the contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now,” Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Oct. 27, referring to the Trump administration’s decision not to tap the funds to support food stamps during the government shutdown.
