The PBS News Hour devoted the first 14 minutes of Monday’s show to the supposedly dire emergency that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP benefits, known colloquially as food stamps) ran out two days ago during the ongoing federal government “shutdown” before a ruling that the government must fund the food aid.
First up, a Lisa Desjardins report from various food banks across the country and found long food lines just two days afterward, after a month of harbingers that this might happen.
Desjardins: As SNAP benefits went into limbo Saturday, that line was not unique. This is a nonprofit in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Tom Boucher, Food Pantry Manager: We have seen about approximately 15 to 20 percent uptick in a number of guests that we have seen in our pantry. A lot of people have donated to us in the past couple days, which is very helpful.
Desjardins found one unfortunate SNAP recipient interviewee Ronald Lubrant, who said “I just want to have the government know, don't take away from me. Otherwise, you're sentencing me to death!” They edited this nonsense into the story.
Co-anchor Amna Nawaz next spoke with Cindy Long, former deputy undersecretary of the USDA's SNAP program, to speak about the nationwide picture. Nawaz invited Long to use emotional blackmail, and Long responded with the usual liberal template concerning the awful choice between buying food and [other vital thing].
Nawaz: Big picture, when you look at what we're dealing with here, the USDA, we know, cited the government shutdown as the reason for its decision to freeze those SNAP funds. That's the first time it's happened in six decades of that program being in place in this country. And families are now dealing with this at a time of rising food prices, rising power bills. How would you describe the situation that people who rely on this program now find themselves in?
Cindy Long: ….I imagine that they're under tremendous stress and already thinking about how they're going to trade off things like, do I fill my prescription this month or do I feed my kids or grandkids? Do I pay the rent this month or do I try to put a little more money of whatever limited resources I have aside for food? It's a horrible situation….
The next segment, hosted by co-anchor Geoff Bennett, featured the chief resource officer at a food bank in Kansas City. Bennett asked Elizabeth Keever, “Even before the shutdown, with higher inflation and a tighter job market, what kind of need were you already seeing?”
Keever replied with dubious statistics.
Keever: You know, that's something that a lot of people didn't realize even before this shutdown is that, in this region that we serve and, frankly, in a lot of places across the country, food insecurity and hunger was higher than it's been in a decade. Year over year, last year, we saw a 10 percent rise. We went from having one in eight folks in our region facing hunger to now one in seven….
Bennett invited Keever to neutralize a conservative point about taxpayers funding people who don’t need it.
Bennett: There can be a misconception about who relies on food banks, who relies on food stamps, or SNAP. Who are you really serving?
Like Nawaz before him, Bennett coaxed out emotional blackmail from his expert guest. This time the answer was a choice between food and dental hygienist school.
There were no tough questions or statements pointing out that Senate Democrats could keep the gravy train going by voting to open up the government, but instead kept voting “No” on continuing resolutions.
The thrust of the News Hour’s ongoing partisan shutdown coverage is encapsulated by Bennett’s question to former Trump official Marc Short on October 28: “Is that message landing, do you think, the Republican argument that, even though they control every lever of power in Washington, that this is somehow a Democrat shutdown?”
It is of course a Democratic shutdown, given that the Democrats are the ones demanding the extension of COVID-era Obama-care subsidies (which Bennett admitted to earlier in October).
These segments were brought to you in part by Letsmakeaplan.org.
