Adam Watson (00:00)
Welcome back to “Simplifying the State,” the podcast where we break down politics so you don’t have to try to figure out why the president is set to preside over the longest shutdown in history, beating the previous shutdown over which he also presided. As always, I’m Adam Watson.

Nicholas Perrin (00:16)
Nicholas Perrin.

Drew Garfinkel (00:17)
And I’m Drew Garfinkel.

Adam Watson (00:19)
All right, now before we start, if you would be so kind as to rate us and follow the podcast wherever you are listening, as well as share it with anyone you think would enjoy it, such as friends, family, or a random person you see at the center of Clayton.

Okay, today’s topic is going to be the government shutdown, sort of where we are a month after the shutdown began. Well, a little bit more than a month, but we thought it was important to revisit this, given that it’s now lasted over a month. There are more programs that are starting to be affected and stuff like that, which sort of brings us to our first thing here, which is basically SNAP, otherwise known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which basically helps provide assistance for low-income people to be able to afford food.

That ran out on November 1. There was then a lawsuit to have the administration pay out benefits through the SNAP program. The lawsuit somewhat succeeded. The judge ordered the program to be paid out. The government then said it would pay out about half of the money that is typically given to recipients for the month of November. But after that, I don’t think there’s anything for December if this extends that far.

But yeah, just real quick, how do you guys think this whole SNAP thing could work out for this month? And how do you think it could impact rolling into December if this shutdown lasts that long?

Nicholas (01:50)
SNAP provides for about 40 million Americans, and it provides a different amount for each of them because there’s a range of incomes that it can provide for. I mean, it’ll affect some people worse than others. Luckily for those people, even though they’re getting kind of cut short on what they already had, they were able to plan ahead a little bit because they already knew that there was the potential for something even worse to happen, where they wouldn’t have any benefits for the month of November. So they would have stocked up on food and supplies for themselves, and they’ll have a little bit extra. But if it lasts until December, even before December, like maybe mid-November, it could start getting pretty dire for a lot of people.

Like, I haven’t seen the range of incomes on SNAP. I haven’t looked at the proportions of it. But I would imagine there are still a couple million people who would be in some pretty dire straits.

Drew Garfinkel (03:01)
Yeah, some people need SNAP, like they rely on it, and without it, they don’t get the food they need. Like what Nicholas said, some people saved up food with the SNAP money, but also, a lot of people probably couldn’t do that. They needed the SNAP to get food on the table, so they don’t have this luxury.

So it’d be awful if this continues, but also it’s still really bad now that these people aren’t getting the money they need.

And what do you think, Adam? Like, what we talked about?

Adam Watson (03:33)
Yeah, I mean, so first of all, the SNAP program in the big, beautiful bill was already reduced, so people were already going to get kicked off of it. And now, on top of that, the people who are already eligible are only going to get half of what they usually get, which is already not a lot of money.

Like Nicholas said, it’s a wide range, but the average for someone in Missouri is about $190 per month per person, which is not a lot. And since it’s basically half now, that’s like $90, which, given how much food costs, is not— I’m not sure how useful that’s going to be. I mean, every little bit will probably help, but it’ll probably be a very difficult month for a lot of people.

I also saw that the USDA was suggesting there could be interruptions and that people might have issues even getting those benefits approved by the courts this month. But we’ll see what happens with that.

So, like we sort of talked about at the beginning, we are approaching the longest shutdown in history.

Adam Watson (04:42)
The current longest shutdown was from December 2018 to January 2019, also under President Trump.

Adam Watson (04:49)
So, how long do you guys think the shutdown will continue? Do you think we could see an end to it by November? Do you think it could drag on into December? What do you guys think is going to happen with that?

Drew Garfinkel (04:59)
I can’t even begin to make an educated or informed guess. Anything I say would be just like my feelings.

Nicholas (05:07)
Well, from what I’ve seen from betting apps and stuff like that, which I know isn’t always the greatest estimate, but it did predict President Trump would win the 2024 election, so it is a decent measure anyway.

The majority opinion there is that it will last past November, and the set date that it would end on overall was like the 28th or 29th of November. However, Republican—what was it—the Senate Minority Leader John Thune, and the second [highest ranking] Democrat of the Senate-

Adam Watson (05:47)
Yeah, Dick Durbin.

Nicholas (05:53)

– talked about the potential compromise that could be happening. And I saw that from other House interests and House Democrats, who were pushing a compromise that would extend Obamacare for two more years, I think, but would reduce it in some aspects.

And yeah, John Thune said he was optimistic about ending soon. So did Dick Durbin.

Adam Watson (06:20)
Yeah, Senate Minority Whip.

Nicholas (06:23)
I think in that sense, it could be optimistic. But, you know, even they said it— don’t get your hopes up because everything could come crashing down, which is politics in a nutshell.

Adam Watson (06:36)
Unless the House comes back into session, which Mike Johnson has not indicated that it will, it’s been on recess since late September.

But unless they come back into session, the Senate is going to have to do something in terms of what’s already been passed by the House. Very brief civics lesson: the way our Congress works is basically anything related to spending has to first be passed by the House.

So they either have to vote on the thing that’s currently been passed by the House, or the House has to come back into session, pass something new, and then get it approved by the Senate.

But as these federal entitlement programs start to run dry— things like SNAP— as we see more disruptions to things like aircraft operations, I saw this last weekend was the worst one since the shutdown began for air traffic controllers.

As we see more things like that start to really pile up, I think we’ll probably see more pressure on Congress to do something, either vote on the current thing or for the House to come back and pass something new.

But that sort of brings me to my next question. Just based on what you guys have seen on social media, on news stories you may read, who do you think politically is winning the shutdown?

Do you think people are blaming the Democrats more? Or do you think people are blaming the Republicans more? Do you think there’s an equal share of blame? What are you guys seeing in your media environment?

Drew Garfinkel (08:00)
So this reminds me of something I saw like 20 minutes before this. It was a clip of Donald Trump being asked something about the government shutdown, and then immediately he’s like, it’s the Democrats’ fault.

Which, like, I feel like they’re pushing— Trump is pushing the narrative that it’s the Democrats’ fault— but he controls the executive branch and the legislative branch. And also, you could argue the judicial branch as well. He appointed all these judges, so he has— like, the Republicans have a lot of power right now.

They don’t have enough to pass something that would allow them to end the shutdown, but they have a lot of people.

What do you think, Nicholas?

Nicholas (08:45)
From what I’ve seen, I’ve seen that from some recent polls that people blame the Republicans more. I think like 10% more in some polls.

I think from the people that I’ve talked to in my circle more, everyone is getting blamed for it, because they think that the shutdown should be ended, no matter what end. You know, like my parents, especially, because they rely on grants from the government to continue their work because they work in pathology at WashU. So, you know, that line ends, and they also worry about people who rely on SNAP aid who aren’t getting as much of it.

So yeah. I think generally the average American blames it more on congressional Republicans and Donald Trump rather than Democrats. But from my circle, both sides.

What about you, Adam?

Adam Watson (09:40)
I mean, yeah, from what I’ve seen, it seems like Republicans are being blamed a little bit more for the shutdown just because they control both houses of Congress and the presidency. I also saw a thing— a couple of Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, said she thinks the Republicans need to fix the shutdown.

But yeah, I mean, from what I’ve seen in my media stuff, it seems like mostly the Republicans are the ones being blamed.

Drew Garfinkel (10:07)
Yeah, like the whole thing with blaming people— I feel like for a lot of the SNAP recipients, it doesn’t matter all too much whose fault it is. I think the underlying issue is they’re not getting food. And like, I don’t know how helpful to the discourse it would be to say whose fault it is.

I think we just need to find a solution to this issue and do something about it.

Adam Watson (10:32)
Yeah, definitely.

Nicholas (10:33)
And because other governmental workers are going without pay, like air traffic controllers, it’s been having a real big effect on air traffic and safety and all that. And a lot of them are calling in— a lot of air traffic controllers are calling in sick because they don’t want to work without pay. So it’s a pretty big problem all around.

Drew Garfinkel (10:47)
Obviously, we talked about SNAP benefits, because that’s something that could affect people specifically. How else could we be affected, though? Do you think there are any other big things that we need to mention?

Adam Watson (11:02)
Yeah, definitely. Coming down the pipeline, I’d assume that as this shutdown drags on, we’ll see more government services sort of become interrupted and possibly temporarily paused. The air traffic control thing is a big thing. Anyone who flies— that could be a safety issue.

But I mean, yeah, again, we are in Clayton, and a lot of us are fairly isolated from some of this stuff. But again, a government shutdown affects everyone differently.

But, you know, it’s sort of just a wait-and-see what happens.

Nicholas (11:47)
My dad came back from South Korea today, and he did have quite a few delays in the process. He had to stay on the plane for quite a while because the TSA and customs were closed for a long time. So there are definitely some problems that we’ve seen personally, yeah.

Adam Watson (12:09)
Yeah. And this sort of reminds me of one more thing I wanted to say.

When it comes to things like Medicaid or Medicare, if there’s a new person who wants to sign up— and this is sort of happening, there’s a situation like this in my family, I’m not going to go into details— but if there’s a new person who wants to sign up for a program in Medicaid, and they’re fairly old and they really need the program, just to submit a form under ideal circumstances it would take like eight to nine weeks. And that’s when the government is open.

Now that the government is shut down, that form can’t be submitted until it opens. So the care can’t be given to the person. And then, when the government does open, there’s probably going to be a backlog of documents, paperwork, and all that.

So people who need programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare are going to face even more delays than they would already face. And that’s just another thing I think is going to start to really affect people.

All right. Thanks for listening to “Simplifying the State.” We’ll be back next week with our next episode. Remember to follow us at Simplifying the State on Instagram. We’ll be posting stuff there. And we’ll talk to you guys next time.