White House touts debt ceiling deal, as food pantries warn of increase demand due to TANF, SNAP cuts

DELMARVA – The battle over the debt ceiling is over, with the Senate passing a measure to avoid a default and sending it to the president’s desk the white house is claiming it’s a victory that avoided economic disaster, despite cuts that they had to accommodate to appease republicans.

“It’s a good day for the economy, we’ve taken the threat of a default off the table, which means that no threat of an imminent recession and millions of job losses, which would have been the consequence of a default,” Deputy Director of the National Economic Council for the White House Bharat Ramamurti.

Lawmakers suspending the nation’s debt limit until January of 2025 avoiding what they say would have been a disastrous default.

” that’s paying our bills to Social Security recipients who are supposed to be getting their weekly checks. It means paying our bills in the form of making paychecks go out the door to members of the military. When it comes to the United States Treasury. And of course, it means that all the people out there with Treasury bonds are actually getting the monthly payments that they’re owed,” Ramamurti said.

While the White House is touting the protection of Social Security and Medicaid, the measure will mean a rollback of food benefit programs like SNAP and TANF for those ages 50-54.

Also in the bill is a ban on any further pauses on student debt payments.

“That was unfortunate. That’s not something that we supported, but it was something that we felt like we had to include in this deal in order to satisfy the Republican demands,” said Ramamurti.

Local Food Bank Adopt A Block Director Mark Thompson says they’ve seen demand for their services jump this year, and fear the rollbacks could send even more people to their doors.

“We’ve we’ve seen in the last few weeks really month that we’ve seen a real increase in older people coming to our church, coming to our food pantries now requesting food,” he said.

“Our budget is almost exhausted, we’re looking for every grant that we can find from the Community Foundation, Wicomico Partnerships for Families and Children, any place we can find grants to find money to continue to pay,” Thompson.

However, the White House is touting how those cuts are dwarfed in comparison to the original cuts proposed by House Republicans saying Republicans initially asked for a 22 percent cut to veterans services medical care, and other things like food inspections and air traffic control.

The White House also tells us they hope the deal helps rebuild the economy this comes as 300 thousand jobs were added in the month of May placing unemployment at 3 point 7 percent.