Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed Congressional Democrats for allegedly blocking federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), an issue in part that has kept the government shutdown for over a month. The Governor also applauded the state's work under Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson for mobilizing efforts to provide food assistance to needy Floridians.
"I'm getting, you know, letters from Democrats saying you should declare an emergency and create your own snap when they're the ones that are filibustering snap," DeSantis said while speaking in Jacksonville. "I mean, are you kidding me? The Republicans, 100% just about are voting to continue the current budget that's in place."
Commissioner Simpson announced an initiative to strengthen the state's food bank infrastructure earlier this month. The move also aims to help Florida farmers by distributing their products to local food banks.
Continuing his ridicule of Democrats, Gon DeSantis added that the current funding resolution favored by the GOP was, ironically, greenlit under the Biden administration.
"The Democrats, they're objecting to continuing Biden's budget," DeSantis argued. "They are doing this in the Senate. They're doing it for political purposes. The gall to be complaining about it when you're the one that's causing it."
The government has been shut down for 34 days. It is the second longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and it is one day away from matching the longest, which occurred from December 2018 to January 2019 during President Donald Trump's first term.
DeSanits indicated there was an easy fix to the problem.
"Any US senator who's concerned about what could happen with those programs, you know, they have a very easy solution," DeSantis said. "They can just simply vote to continue the programs and continue funding it. You've had over 40 of them that have voted no when it came time to continue."
But that might be wishful thinking. According to one Congressional lawmaker, the shutdown might last for at least another few weeks.
"I am hearing that we potentially might not be back until even around the Thanksgiving timeframe or after that," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said during a recent appearance on Fox News's Sunday Morning Futures.
