Thread by @mike_frags

Here’s the thing: SNAP’s authorization has lapsed. So even if the $3b (or however many billion the Judge from Motley Rice thinks) exists, the program requiring its expenditure does not. 1/9

https://twitter.com/ewess92/status/1984732872004002011

They don’t cover this in School House Rock but how a bill becomes a law happens twice for a government program: first when the program is authorized and second when it’s funded via appropriations. McConnell is assuming this is all about approps but it’s actually both. 2/9

Is there money in a contingency fund? Sure, probably. At minimum there’s $3b available through 09/2026. Maybe there’s another $3b available through 09/2027 but none of that necessarily matters. 3/9

You see, the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 was most recently reauthorized in the 2018 Farm Bill. That authorization ran out in 2023 and subsequent CRs have *carried that authorization* for their length. 4/9

This means that SNAP’s authorization expired with the CR on October 1st. The program is no longer in effect, and with it this entitlement. 5/9

Congress will occasionally fund an unauthorized program (it did it for years with VAWA) but the funding is not an authorization. It’s simply a pot of money. It is highly unlikely that the provision of contingency funds for the execution of the entitlement also extends it. 6/9

At minimum McConnell should have explained it. The likely answer is that the money is there until its end date for the Secretary to use as she deems necessary. But the statutory mandate for its use simply isn’t there. The money could arguably be gone, too. It’s thorny! 7/9

McConnell is very active on Twitter so maybe he’ll read this. If so, look, don’t feel too bad, Your Honor: very few judges understand how legislation actually works—even the good conservative ones! But maybe less snark against Trump and more circumspection? 8/9

Instead McConnell is ordering the executive to go spend money in accounts he seems to have found online in order to fund a program that lacks congressional authorization. No one who follows McConnell on Twitter will be surprised by this, but we should still expect better. 9/9