Copyright Arkansas Times
This Saturday, SNAP benefits will run out for tens of millions of Americans, including more than 220,000 Arkansans. Unless Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., strike a surprise deal to reopen the government soon, thousands of families around the state could be unable to buy groceries next week — an unprecedented disruption. SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has been around since the 1960s. There are two reasons why this is happening. The first is the partisan impasse in Congress, which centers on Republican cuts to health care spending. The second is the Trump administration’s refusal to use a roughly $6 billion SNAP contingency fund to pay for food assistance for at least part of November. (Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees federal nutrition programs like SNAP, says he’s fine with withholding the money; some Democratic states are decidedly not fine with it, and are suing the Trump administration over the decision.) With federal funds set to shut off in two days, the most important question now is how states will respond. Democratic governors including Gavin Newsom of California, Kathy Hochul of New York and JB Pritzker of Illinois have already dedicated tens of millions in state dollars to support food banks. A few Republicans are doing the same. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday announced the rollout of a temporary SNAP replacement program that could cost an estimated $38 million each week the shutdown continues. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has declared an emergency, allowing the Legislature to use state funds to cover the gap for most beneficiaries. What about Arkansas? Gov. Sarah Sanders has been tweeting up a storm about the impact of the “Democrats’ shutdown” on families, including a slick daily graphic counting down the number of days until SNAP funding runs out. So far, though, she’s given no indication of putting state money where her mouth is. “We’ll continue to look at every option we have to take care of people in our state,” she told The New York Times. “But ultimately the thing that makes the most sense — and is by far not only the best solution, but should be happening because it is their responsibility — is to have Senate Democrats quit playing games and fund our government.” The thing is, Arkansas has rarely been more flush with cash than it is right now. State tax revenue did decline last fiscal year because of a series of income tax cuts enacted by Sanders and legislative Republicans. But because of Republicans’ parsimonious spending on most public services, the state still accumulated a surplus of $368 million in fiscal year 2025, which ended in June. That’s on top of gigantic surpluses the state racked up in previous years. Fueled by federal COVID relief spending that stimulated the economy, Arkansas accumulated a record-setting $1.63 billion surplus in FY 2022, a second-highest-ever $1.16 billion surplus in FY 2023, and a $698 million surplus in FY 2024. Most of that money was parked in state reserve funds, where it still remains. According to data compiled by the Pew Research Center, Arkansas currently has the fourth-highest balance of “rainy day funds” of any state, measured by the number of days that the government could keep operating if it had to rely on those funds alone. (Rainy day funds are a generic name for money that states have stashed away in case of economic downturns or other unforeseen emergencies.) Pew says the 50-state median is 47 days, but Arkansas is well above that. The state could run for 105 days just on the $1.8 billion it has in its Catastrophic Reserve Fund. Actually, Pew appears to significantly understate how much money Arkansas has banked away. It doesn’t take into account a second pot of money that holds an additional $1 billion. Called the Arkansas Reserve Fund Set Aside, it was created by the Legislature in 2023 to stash a portion of those giant COVID-era surpluses. Some back-of-the-envelope math says the state could run for more than 160 days on those two reserve funds alone, based on Pew’s assumptions. If so, that would put Arkansas, one of the poorest states in the U.S. by most measures, in second place for total rainy day funds proportional to daily operational spending. There’s also another $640 million in general revenue that the Legislature and governor will decide what to do with in the next legislative session this spring, according to a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. That adds up to at least $3.4 billion in state funds that aren’t earmarked for any specific purpose. Most of it isn’t immediately available, at least not without legislative action — but it gives a sense of the huge financial cushion the state is working with. Arkansans depend on SNAP. In rural parts of the state, about 14% of the population relies on the program, and in some counties, the number is much higher. The state’s food banks and food pantries have warned that there’s no way they can possibly make up for a loss in federal benefits; SNAP provides roughly nine times the number of meals as the charitable food system, Arkansas Foodbank CEO Brian Burton said last week. Sanders herself has said over and over these past few days how critical SNAP is for people’s well being. “For nearly a quarter million Arkansans, SNAP benefits mean food on the table and groceries in the pantry,” she said in a video posted on Twitter this morning. There’s no doubt that’s true — so why isn’t the governor doing something about it? On Tuesday, a group of 16 state representatives (15 Democrats and one Republican) sent a letter to Sanders asking the governor’s office to draw up a “humanitarian action plan” to address the SNAP freeze. “You have access to emergency funds in times of crisis,” they wrote. At least one state senator, Sen. Jamie Scott (D-North Little Rock) has also written a letter to the governor; Scott urged Sanders to declare a statewide disaster over the potential funding lapse. Among other options, the governor could request the Arkansas Legislative Council release money set aside in a specific fund that lawmakers can tap even outside of a legislative session. There’s $69.6 million in that pot right now, according to the Department of Finance and Administration spokesman. Dipping into the billions in rainy day and general revenue reserves, on the other hand, would probably require the governor to call the Legislature into session. While they’re at it, they could also handle a second fiscal issue impacting thousands of Arkansans: The dearth of federal funding for child care help for low-income families through a program called School Readiness Assistance. The child care situation has little to do with the current government shutdown, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Thousands of families are facing new out-of-pocket copays that may price them out of daycare; some parents are considering quitting their jobs to stay home with the kids instead, just as SNAP benefits are disrupted. Child care providers say cuts to the reimbursements they collect through the School Readiness Assistance program could prompt layoffs, or shut them down completely. The governor called special sessions in 2023 and 2024, both for the purpose of cutting income taxes for businesses and middle- to upper-income households. What’s stopping her from taking action now? Sanders says the responsibility for SNAP lies only with the other team. “Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are so blinded by their hatred of President Trump that they’re willing to hurt the very people they were elected to serve,” she said in the video she tweeted out Thursday. “Arkansans deserve better.” Setting aside the question of whether Schumer and Jeffries — both from New York — were really elected to serve the people of Arkansas, it’s worth noting that there’s no reason a red-state governor can’t score partisan points against congressional Democrats while also paying for food benefits. In Louisiana, Gov. Landry used his emergency declaration to bash the “Schumer Shutdown” and wax about the importance of ultimately getting people off “social programs that the Left uses as a weaponization tool.”
