General Discussion

Consider:

- The current balance of Section 32 is reported to be 23 billion.

- Funding Food Nutrition Service (FNS) Child Nutrition Programs is a key purpose for the Section 32 fund.

- 39% of SNAP recipients are children. That makes it a child nutrition program as important as WIC and school lunch programs.

- WIC costs 600 million per month.

- SNAP costs 8 billion.

- The balance of the SNAP contingency fund is reported to be at least 5 billion, leaving 3 billion to be made up from Section 32.

- Section 32 is funded by 30% of customs duties from the prior year. Hasn't Trump been telling us that they've collected trillions in tariffs? Even if reality is closer to 100 billion, that means come 1/1/2025, the Section 32 fund is getting a deposit of about 30 billion that is COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF APPROPRIATIONS.

Even if SNAP and WIC had needed to be fully funded from Section 32 funds for both November AND December, the balance in Section 32 is only reduced to somewhere around 10.8 billion -- and will be replenished with 30% of tariffs collected in 2024, completely independent of the budget appropriations process.

3 billion SNAP Nov
8 billion SNAP Dec
O.6 billion WIC Nov
0.6 billion WIC Dec
---------------------+
12.2 billion total

Their claims of some unacceptable risk or needing the money for WIC or some disaster are nonsense. Utter nonsense.