Press Releases

This Saturday, SNAP benefits run out for 42 million Americans. Let me say that again: 42 million families - including thousands in my home state of Michigan - could lose the ability to put food on their tables.

Why? Because Democrats chose to use their pain as leverage. Leverage for more wasteful spending. Leverage to satisfy their radical base.

Meanwhile, Republicans did our job. We voted for a clean, responsible bill to keep the government open and fully fund SNAP.

Democrats voted to shut it down. They voted to deny food assistance to 42 million Americans. And they voted that way more than a dozen times.

I met one of these recipients last weekend while volunteering at a food bank in St. Clair County. His name is Jim. Jim’s wife is a teacher. He’s a retired auto worker. They rely on SNAP to help cover the cost of groceries.

He waited in line for more than three hours because he knows he won’t be getting his benefits this week. You know what he told me?

He told me: “Thank you. Thank you for all you’re doing to keep the government open.”

I also spoke with a woman who recently lost her husband. She’s now raising her grandkids and told me she’s never needed help before, but now she’s struggling to afford groceries. These are the real people struggling, real people that Republicans are fighting for. Real people that I am fighting for.

A farmer back home once told me: “When you’re not hungry, you have a lot of problems. When you’re hungry, you only have one.”

Right now, families on SNAP have one problem and that problem should never, ever be used as political leverage.

So, Republicans will keep fighting. We’ll keep showing up. And we’ll keep demanding that Democrats stop using suffering Americans as pawns in their political games.

It’s time to pass the clean CR and put the American people first.

Watch Chairwoman McClain's remarks here.