Economist Paul Robin Krugman during FIDES 2023 at the Windsor Hotel in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on September 25, 2023

After almost a month, the partial shutdown of the United States' federal government drags on as Democratic and GOP lawmakers continue to fight over a spending package. And Democrats are warning that access to two crucial safety-net programs — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare — is on the line.

One of the people who is sounding the alarm is liberal economist Paul Krugman, who fears that many Americans could lose access to both food and health care if those programs are not adequately funded by Congress soon.

In an October 28 column posted on his Substack page, Krugman lays out four takeaways from the "hunger games" being played by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.

"While in in the checkout line," the New York City-based Krugman explains, "I often see some patrons, typically elderly and/or disabled, paying with EBT cards. EBT cards are the way the government delivers food aid under the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. SNAP has become a crucial part of America's social safety net, with more than 40 million Americans relying on those EBT cards to put food on the table. And unless the government shutdown ends this week, which seems basically impossible, federal support for SNAP will be cut off this Saturday (November 1)."

Krugman's takeaways are: (1) "This is a political decision — specifically, a Republican decision," (2) "The pain from lost food aid will, if anything, hurt Republican voters worse than Democrats," (3) "Despite what Republicans believe, SNAP recipients aren’t malingerers," and (4) "Food stamps are an investment in the future."

"Why are Republicans hostile to a program that benefits tens of millions of Americans?," Krugman argues. "Pay attention to right-wing rhetoric about food stamps, and you'll hear again and again assertions that SNAP beneficiaries are lazy malingerers — the 'bums on welfare' who should be forced to go out and get jobs. But that myth is punctured by a quick look at who gets SNAP. The fact is, the great majority of SNAP recipients can't work: 40 percent are children; 18 percent are elderly; 11 percent are disabled."

Krugman adds, "Furthermore, a majority of recipients who are capable of working do work. They are the working poor…. Which brings us back to the impending cutoff of SNAP. It's gratuitous: Republicans could easily avoid this cutoff if they wanted to. It's cruel: Millions of Americans will suffer severely from the loss of food aid. And it's destructive: Depriving children, in particular, of aid will cast a shadow on America's economy and society for decades to come. So of course the cutoff is going to happen."

Paul Krugman's full Substack column is available at this link.