Leading Republican lawmakers have dismissed attempts to push legislative carve-outs, or “rifle shot” bills, to alleviate Americans feeling the weight of the monthlong government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) first expressed skepticism over “rifle shot” legislation when it came to paying military service members and air traffic controllers, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday. But focus has shifted to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which lapse Saturday.
“My view is what it has been from the very beginning, and that is to pay SNAP recipients by reopening the government. It’s not complicated,” Thune said Monday night.
Both Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have pushed back on a Democratic-led attempt to keep the food program funded through November.
“These rifle-shot bills that you keep hearing about deviate from the goal,” Johnson said Thursday. “We have one singular purpose, and that is to reopen and fund the entire government.”
“The Democrats do not get to shut down the government and then make the decision on who’s more important than the other and which little thing they want to fund to relieve their own political pain,” he continued.
The Democratic bill, spearheaded by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), would require the Trump administration to fund SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which provides essential nutrition assistance for lower-income mothers and children. States would then be reimbursed for funding those benefits during the shutdown.
On Wednesday, Vice President Vance said Thune was “clear we’re not going to do rifle shots,” according to Semafor. That night, Thune blocked a vote on the bill, Politico reported. He agreed with Luján that people needed their benefits but accused Democrats of playing political games and of picking “winners and losers.”
“This isn’t a political game,” Thune said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. “These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about. And you all just figured out 29 days in that, ‘Oh, there might be some consequences. There are people who’ll run out of money?’”
But Republicans had their own bill to keep SNAP benefits issued through November. Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) Keep SNAP Funded Act of 2025 would fund the food aid program for states across the country until the shutdown is over. Along with several Republicans, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) showed support for Hawley’s bill.
“@HawleyMO I’ll vote for your bill to extend SNAP benefits so 16 million kids don’t go hungry the day after Halloween,” Khanna posted on the social platform X early Wednesday afternoon. “Can you ask Speaker Johnson to open the House and bring it for a vote?”
Another of the bill’s supporters was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“Today, tomorrow, if John Thune would put it on the floor, it would pass overwhelmingly,” Schumer said at a press conference.
But Hawley said the bill, which Thune also rejected, would not go to a vote, Politico wrote. Thune told reporters that should the Senate go “down the road of … [taking] care of this group or that group … it just begs the larger question, how long is this going to drag on?”
SNAP provided benefits to about 41.7 million Americans in fiscal 2024, according to a monthly average calculated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That year, the government spent $99.8 billion on SNAP, a monthly average of $187.20 per participant.
