By Caitlin Sievers | AZ Mirror
Gov. Katie Hobbs is urging the Trump administration to use a $6 billion contingency fund to avoid cutting off federal food assistance to more than 923,000 Arizonans and 42 million Americans at the end of the week.
Hobbs joins other prominent Arizona Democrats in calling out President Donald Trump, along with congressional Republicans, for failing to release the money in the contingency fund for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal low-income food aid program formerly known as food stamps.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP, had previously said it intended to use the contingency fund to continue November SNAP payments during the ongoing government shutdown, which began Oct. 1. But the Trump administration has since reversed course, putting 42 million people across the country at risk of going hungry if payments aren’t distributed as scheduled on Nov. 1.
Hobbs attributed the reversal to Trump’s pledge that he would use the shutdown to “cut Democrat programs” to gain the upper hand in negotiations to reopen the federal government.
