Food stamps and free craft beer: How the shutdown is hitting the US

New York: At the north-east corner of Central Park on a frosty winter morning this week, the volunteers at New York Common Pantry were hard at work sorting piles of food into plastic bags.

Piled high around them were donated packets of pinto beans, tins of chicken and stacks of bananas. Downstairs in the basement another team of volunteers was chopping up carrots for a hot meal service.

Volunteers at New York Common Pantry.
Credit:Matthew Knott

Surrounded by rows of austere housing commission towers, the Common Pantry in East Harlem is one of New York's busiest food pantries. Most of the predominantly black and Hispanic people who visit to collect food hampers are homeless, on the aged pension or receive government-funded food stamps.

This week the pantry opened its doors to a new type of client: federal workers who have been hit by the longest government shutdown in US history.

Since the government went into hibernation on December 22 because of disagreement about whether to fund a wall on the US-Mexico border, an estimated 800,000 federal employees across America have been on furlough or forced to work without pay. Last Friday marked a crucial moment: the first day they did not receive their usual pay cheques.

"Not all federal workers are handsomely paid," Neill Bogan, New York Common Pantry's senior director of development, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age during a visit this week.

"And with living costs so expensive in New York City, being middle class can mean you are one or two missed pay cheques away from disaster."

Union members and Internal Revenue Service workers rally outside an IRS Service Centre in Covington, Kentucky.Credit:AP

Among the Common Pantry's visitors have been furloughed workers from the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service who need help feeding their families.

"They were not happy about having to go to a food pantry," Bogan says. "That's not something people who are employed in America expect to do. There is an embarrassment factor."

Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Trinity Episcopal Church in Woodbridge opened on Saturday to provide free food to furloughed workers from the Customs Department and Transport Safety Authority.

"These workers are caught in the middle of a situation beyond their control," Reverend Angie Cipolla says. "We are holding all the workers and their families, indeed all in our government, in our prayers and we pray for a swift and just end to this shutdown."

One of the few benefits of the shutdown has been showcasing Americans' generosity to each other in times of need. Restaurants and bars have offered discounted meal and drink specials for federal workers; museums and cinemas have been offering free or discounted tickets.

Banks and credit unions have suspended late-payment fees on credit cards, while mass transit systems in Florida and other states are providing free or discounted rides for unpaid federal employees.

Fibre Space, a yarn store in Virginia, is offering free knitting classes for furloughed workers as a way to relieve their stress. Other businesses have offered free 10 pin bowling, mini golf and laser tag games for federal employees going without pay.

While such acts of solidarity are welcomed, there is no escaping the economic hardship the shutdown is inflicting. The typical federal worker has missed an estimated $US5000 ($6900) in pay since the shutdown began.

Among those who have missed out on getting paid were active duty members of the US Coast Guard – the first time in history that US Armed Forces service members have not been paid during a lapse in government funding.

And it's not only federal workers who are hit. Low-income Americans who rely on government benefits are also getting squeezed.

Neill Bogan from New York Common Pantry says a nightmare scenario will occur if the government remains closed until next month and funding for food stamps – which help almost 40 million low-income Americans afford groceries – expires.

"Food pantries everywhere are asking, 'Are we going to be swamped?'" he says.

Almost two million low-income Americans – including seniors and people with disabilities – also risk losing their rent assistance and could be evicted.

Almost all employees from the Department of Housing and Urban Development have been put on furlough, meaning mandatory health and safety inspections have been cancelled.

University students, unable to submit paperwork for grants to pay housing and tuition, have launched GoFundMe campaigns so they can stay in college.

Among the more surprising victims of the shutdown are craft beer brewers. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which sits in the US Treasury, is closed, meaning it cannot give the necessary approvals for new beer labels.

This has ensnared brewers like City Barrel Brewing Company, a small company in Kansas City, Missouri, which wanted to release a new IPA called Rad AF. It is sitting in tanks but will not receive labelling approval in time to be legally sold.

So the company is going to give the beer away for free at a "Shutdown Shindig" party this month. Federal employees on furlough are encouraged to attend.

The shutdown has become a focus of such national concern that rap superstar Cardi B discussed it on Instagram this week in a profanity-laded video that has attracted over 8 million views.

“This shit is crazy,” the rapper said. “Like, our country is a hellhole right now, all for a f—ing wall. And we really need to take this serious.”

What eventually became Donald Trump's signature campaign promise began as a memory trick. Trump's campaign aides have said they pushed the 2016 presidential candidate to speak about building a wall on the Mexican border as an easy way to talk about immigration.

Whenever he mentioned the idea at his rallies, it drew a rapturous reception which encouraged Trump to talk about it more.

With typical flourish, Trump insisted that not only would he build it but that he could get Mexico to pay for it.

During the first two years of Trump's term, Republicans had almost complete power in Washington. They controlled not only the presidency but the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Yet Trump, the author of The Art of the Deal, was unable to secure funding for his border wall.

Trump's best chance to secure a wall came this time last year, when he was in negotiations with congressional Democrats over an immigration reform deal. In exchange for allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children (a group known as DREAMERS) to remain in the US, Democrats had said they were willing to provide Trump $US25 billion in wall and fence funding and other border security measures.

But instead of taking the deal, Trump demanded extensive changes to the legal immigration system that Democrats could not accept. So hopes of comprehensive immigration reform – including funding for a wall – came to nothing.

After bragging in a now-famous meeting with Democratic leaders in December that he would be happy to shut down the government for a wall, Trump appeared to soften his stance by the end of the year.



He looked ready to approve legislation that would have kept the government running without funding the wall – until he came under ferocious criticism from right-wing media pundits like Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh for caving in.

“Either Trump never intended to build a wall and was scamming voters from the beginning or he hasn’t the first idea in how to get it done and no interest in finding out,” Coulter said.

She predicted that without a wall Trump's "support will evaporate and Trump will very likely not finish his term and definitely not be elected to a second term”.

Alarmed at the backlash, Trump reinstated his demand for wall funding. In its final days of Republican control, the House passed a bill containing $US5.7 billion in wall funding.

But the bill was unable to muster the necessary 60 votes to pass the Senate, sending the government into shutdown.

Over the following four weeks Trump stood firm. Last week he appeared in a special televised address to the nation to explain why a humanitarian and security "crisis"on the border meant a wall was necessary.

But his argument has failed to sway the public, according to a raft of polls that show most Americans disapprove of both the shutdown and the wall.

A poll by Quinnipiac University released this week found that 63 per cent oppose shutting down the government to fund the wall, with 32 per cent in favour.

The poll found 59 per cent believe a wall is not a good use of taxpayer dollars and is not necessary to protect the border.

An overwhelming majority of Republicans support a wall, but 63 per cent of independents voters said it was not a good use of taxpayer money.

A Marist College poll released this week found that 61 per cent of respondents said the shutdown had given them a more negative view of Trump, while 28 per cent said they felt more positively toward him.

Trump's approval ratings, already low, have slipped further since the shutdown began. His net approval rating of -14.6 per cent is at its lowest point since February 2018.

Trump appears to have underestimated how unified Democrats would be in their opposition. The party is emboldened after its massive gains at the November midterm elections. And its progressive base has no desire to hand Trump victory on a policy many Democrats regard as racist.

Having entered into a standoff with no clear exit strategy, Trump now faces an invidious choice. To continue bleeding support among the general public as the shutdown affects more and more people. Or to disappoint his base by giving up on his biggest campaign promise.

“I don’t understand what the outcome is here," Trump's former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said this week. "And I don’t understand where we’re going with it."

Source: Read Full Article