North Dakota GOP Governor Kelly Armstrong has released over $1.5 million from the state’s Health and Human Services general fund – tax dollars collected from North Dakota taxpayers. The state funds are to support food assistance programs being stalled by the congressional GOP playing political games with America’s food programs serving the neediest of populations.
Armstrong specifically allocated $915,000 in taxpayer funds to the Great Plains Food Bank to help replace lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly “food stamp”) benefits and approximately $600,000 in taxpayer funds to the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program. Both programs stopped due to the ongoing federal government shutdown being perpetuated by the GOP not wanting to extend healthcare subsidies to make health insurance affordable for American citizens (including an estimated 35,000 North Dakota citizens) and by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, La., who is actively delaying installing Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva to prevent a forced vote on releasing the files that would reveal child sex predators of President Donald Trump’s friend, convicted sex offender, and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
While this funding is intended to help North Dakotans who are facing a potential loss of federal SNAP and WIC benefits, never forget that North Dakota taxpayers should not have had to foot this expense again since the taxes they pay to the federal government for these programs already have contingency funding in place. But, because Trump wanted to use food for the poor and needy as a political football, he had been refusing to release the funding until two federal judges have ruled on forcing the use of the contingency funding combined with recent pressure from 25 states filing lawsuits to release the funds. However, even though Trump has stated originally he would fight the release, and then a Trump cabinet official later said the administration would not fight the release, as of Tuesday Trump restated he would defy the court orders and threatened to deny the release until the government shutdown has ended. Trump’s administration has also said the SNAP program would continue, following the court orders, but only pay out to recipients at 50% of what they originally received.
Did North Dakota’s Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley join the 25 states to file suit against Trump in order to protect and prevent North Dakota taxpayers from paying twice and to insure our state’s elderly, children, and working poor won’t go hungry? Nope. But here is the list of states with attorneys general who did: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
It should be noted that North Dakota’s U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer did join 13 other Republicans on a bill in addition to the sponsor U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to appropriate funding to provide SNAP benefits during the shutdown. However, Cramer yielded any power and authority of Congress he had to Trump when he not only allowed but actively and vocally supported the questionable legal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which found no fraud, greatly exaggerated any savings they found, and willy nilly defunded critical government programs and departments without debate or discussion. Since Congress presents and approves budgets, any cuts to programs, and Cramer’s support of DOGE to go against the will, decisions, and actions of Congress – and Cramer never challenging Trump’s overreach – abdicates and transfers any authority Congress had to the executive branch. Additionally, the “Big Beautiful Bill” – which cuts $186 billion from SNAP over a decade and $100 million from WIC – was fully supported by Cramer, U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, and U.S. Sen. John Hoeven.
So, due to lack of leadership by Fedorchak, Cramer, and Hoeven, and them never challenging Trump’s overreach, they and their GOP counterparts enable Trump to play politics with food for America’s most vulnerable populations. Meanwhile, North Dakota taxpayers have now been the victim of having their federal taxes that have already been collected to pay for the food programs to now also have their state taxes pay for the same programs.
That may not bother our wealthy congressional delegation, but most North Dakota taxpayers don’t want the state and federal government to reach in the citizens’ pockets so that duplicate services force them to pay for the same tax funded program twice.
According to Quiver Quantitative, Fedorchak’s net worth is estimated at $7.43 million, Cramer’s is at just under $900,000, and Hoeven’s is at $46 million.
What can you do?
1. Call or email Attorney General Drew Rigley’s office at (701) 328-2210 or ndag@nd.gov and respectfully demand that North Dakota join the 25 other states who are suing to release the SNAP contingency funds.
2. Call or email North Dakota’s congressional delegation and respectfully demand they stand up for North Dakota citizens by pushing back aggressively against Trump’s overreach, Trump’s violation of court orders to release the funds for the food program, Trump using a food program for the needy as a political pawn to delay release of the Epstein files, and the GOP using the food program as a hostage as they lie about “medicaid for illegal aliens” and fight against extending healthcare subsidies to make health insurance affordable for American citizens, including an estimated 35,000 North Dakota citizens.