The U.S. federal government shutdown continues, with congressional lawmakers scrambling to keep food assistance to the neediest from expiring and military servicemembers bracing to go without pay, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling on legislators and the Trump administration to ensure funding of lifesaving programs.

The federal government in the United States shut down at midnight between September 30 and October 1 of this year, after lawmakers failed to secure a deal to raise the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow in order to continue meeting obligations. So far, some 900,000 federal employees have been furloughed.

“This would be catastrophic for families and individuals who rely on SNAP to put food on the table,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Archdiocese for US military services and is president of the USCCB.

“[It] places the burdens of this shutdown most heavily on the poor and vulnerable of our nation, who are the least able to move forward,” Broglio said.

If no deal is reached, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP, frequently called “food stamps” – will lapse on Nov. 1. This would be the first time in the 60-year history of the SNAP program that lawmakers allow it to lapse.

Some lawmakers in both the Republican and Democratic parties have proposed stand-alone bills that would address critical issues like SNAP benefits and military pay apart from a broader funding bill capable reopening the federal government.

“As this government shutdown continues, the U.S. bishops are deeply alarmed that essential programs that support the common good, such as SNAP, may be interrupted. This consequence is unjust and unacceptable,” Broglio also said.

Noting the US bishops’ consistent advocacy for public policies that support those in need, Broglio pled “with lawmakers and the Administration to work in a bipartisan way to ensure that these lifesaving programs are funded, and to pass a government funding bill to end the government shutdown as quickly as possible.”

The US federal government shut down after talks between Republicans and Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives failed to reach agreement over an extension of tax credits – set to expire November 1 – that make health insurance more affordable for millions of US citizens, and also stalled over US President Donald Trump’s cuts to the government healthcare program, Medicaid, which is used by millions of people, many of them elderly, disabled and with low incomes.

An emergency stopgap that would have avoided the shutdown passed in the House but did not clear the Senate.

On Wednesday, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, said Republicans “are on a crusade to kill SNAP.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, dismissed proposed standalone measures because they do not deal with military or federal law enforcement pay, or air traffic controllers working without pay, not to mention rental and housing assistance, small business loans, or the Head Start program that provides comprehensive early childhood assistance – in education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services – to low-income children and families.

“Democrats don’t want the bad press of hungry Americans,” Thune said, calling the Democratic proposal in the Senate “a cynical attempt to buy political cover for Democrats to allow them to carry on their government shutdown even longer.”

Rank-and-file legislators in both parties, meanwhile, are reported to be increasingly impatient with congressional leaders.

The longest U.S. government shutdown in history occurred during the first Trump administration, from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, and was over the relatively narrow question of funding for Trump’s proposed border wall.

Some 42 million people in the US rely on SNAP benefits every month, roughly 12 percent of the population. Upward of 20,000 US military families also receive SNAP assistance, with others receiving other forms of assistance.