KANSAS CITY - If the governmental shutdown continues, SNAP benefits will expire at the end of the month. As a result, 667,000 Missourians would lose their benefits.
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley announced in a post on X he is introducing legislation to fund SNAP through the shutdown, and he's hopeful his fellow lawmakers will support his bill.
"I hope everyone will support this, I don't know who could be against needing to eat," Hawley tells KMOX, adding "I guess we'll find out."
With time of the essence, Hawley intends to move quickly.
"I'm gonna take this to the floor as soon as I'm allowed to under the rules and I hope I'm going to get a vote on this."
Should SNAP expire before Hawley's bill become law, there is a contingency in place.
"My bill also makes the snap benefits retroactive... So if there were to be a lapse, which I hope there would not be, there would be compensation for [recipients] with back funding."
Hawley said he also plans to introduce a bill allocating a portion of tax revenue from tariffs to farmers struggling through the ongoing trade war. A new challenge cattle ranchers could face, increased foreign competition. President Donald Trump is weighing importing beef from Argentina to slow the skyrocketing costs facing consumers at the grocery store.
Hawley is not supportive of this move, saying it hurts the wrong people.
"I don't want our cattle ranchers get hurt, they're not the problem here," Hawley says, adding "I'm not in favor of depressing the price for cattle ranchers and I'm not in favor of buying foreign beef, from anywhere."
So who's the culprit behind the inflating price of beef? Hawley says the meat packing industry.
"The ones who actually turn around and sell the beef to the grocery stores, they're making out like bandits."
Hawley goes as far as calling the few meat packers dominating the industry a monopoly, saying action should be taken.
"There's only four of them basically left in the world, three of them are foreign owned. In my view, they need to be broken up."
Hawley says if you want to bring down the price of beef, you need to take on the meat packers and bring down input costs for farmers.