The partial government shutdown, hours away from becoming the longest in U.S. history, means that millions of low-income Americans are about to get their February food stamps a few weeks early — an unprecedented payout of billions of dollars in benefits that has states and grocery stores scrambling.
After raising alarm that the food-stamp program could run out of funding for February, the Trump administration announced this week that it had come up with a way to bankroll more than $4.8 billion in benefits next month — with just one catch: Benefits for the nearly 39 million people enrolled in the program must be paid out by Jan. 20, weeks earlier than usual.
People gotta eat...Yeah, you read that right; "39 million people" and about $5 billion a month. And just wait until about 30 million of them start whining when all of their February ration is gone by February 1. It won't be pretty.
