- reverse pyromania
- Posts
- Malicious Compliance
Malicious Compliance
Never doing what a judge tells them to do, SNAP edition
mister mix
November 03, 2025
I don’t even know what this means:
The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown.
Further to that, the Trump administration said $600m would be used to fund states’ administrative costs in administering Snap benefits, leaving $4.65bn that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.
The partial payments are unprecedented in the program’s history. A USDA official warned in a court filing that at least some states, which administer Snap benefits on a day-to-day basis, would need weeks to months to make system changes that would allow them to provide the reduced benefits.
US district judge in Rhode Island John McConnell and another judge in Boston, US district judge Indira Talwani, said on Friday the administration had the discretion to also tap a separate fund holding about $23bn.
Patrick Penn, deputy under secretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in a court filing the agency was carefully considering using those funds but determined they must remain available for child nutrition programs instead of Snap.
The “months to make system changes” part of this indicates that this is another Trump Administration attempt to “comply” with a court that will lead to non-compliance, because if the states’ systems can’t do half-SNAP allotments, it’s not like they’re going to be changed overnight.
You often hear people ask why government systems can’t be as smooth and streamlined as the apps people use everyday (pick one: Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, etc.) The answer is that we don’t want to invest in making them easy, that the underlying programs were probably created without any reference to how to implement them smoothly (i.e., they’re over-complicated), and the underlying systems are probably decades old. In other words, the problem is our stupid way of doing “welfare” programs: a program for every need, a means test for every program, and a program driven by fear of the possibility that someone “undeserving” will get a benefit.
MAGA wants to starve its own to own the libs, and by the time their malicious compliance is sorted out by a judge (if ever), people will indeed be starving.
Oh, and Nancy Pelosi is retiring. About time.
Reply