Snapping Up Food Stamps

Even as Washington grapples with snipping the federal budget, spending on government entitlement programs continues to spiral out of control. One of the worst offenders is food assistance, a program with an insatiable appetite for taxpayer funds.

Already, the program's growth has outstripped nearly every other government assistance scheme. More than 43 million Americans now receive food stamps, renamed Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2008 to shed its image as a plan riddled with waste and fraud. One out of every eight Americans or 15 percent of the population receives SNAP assistance, a staggering increase of 74 percent since 2007.

A major reason for the runaway growth is the change in emphasis. Approved by Congress in 1964, the food stamp program was designed to feed poor households by providing ducats to redeem for groceries. A key feature of the early program was to allow clients to purchase surplus food produced by American farmers at a steep discount.

Most of those receiving food assistance had no job and existed on welfare. But as recently as 1999, wage earners outnumbered welfare families getting food benefits. With regular adjustments in income eligibility requirements, most single parent wage earners now qualify for food assistance. The benefit has become a de facto subsidy for low-wage jobs.

As the program has lowered its requirements, the cost to taxpayers has soared. In 1964, the annual funding for the food stamp program was $75 million. In the 2012 federal fiscal year, which began in October, funding is scheduled to reach $85.2 billion. That's more than double the 2010 spending level. This is what happens when entitlement programs are left unchecked.

But the growth is unsustainable with federal budget deficits stretching as far as the eye can see. Yet there is little Congress can do from a budgeting standpoint. As an entitlement program, Congress does not decide each year to increase or decrease SNAP funding. Instead, the budget appropriation is determined by estimations of how many people will apply and be eligible for food assistance. The only way to influence the budget is a Congressional vote to alter eligibility for the food assistance program.

That is almost impossible to do. Food stamps have normally been insulated from politics because any attempt to decrease benefits raises the spectre of poor people eating cat food to survive. That image is prepetuated by Democrats and the media to scare away advocates of food assistance reform.

Meanwhile, food program waste and fraud continues unabated. In fiscal year 2009, so-called improper payments cost taxpayers nearly $2.2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since most fraud goes undetected, the financial impact is likely much higher than reported.

Republicans have poked around the issue this session. As recently as June, a House Agriculture Subcommittee began looking for ways to trim the SNAP budget while using funds more efficiently to tackle legitimate needs. But Democrats have so far sidetracked reform by characterizing the effort as a Republican scheme to deny food to hungry infants and old people.

In the past, these emotionally-charged arguments have trumped common sense in the debate over food assistance. However, Congress can no longer ignore the facts as it faces pressure to reduce the burgeoning federal deficit. An overhaul of SNAP is long overdue. But like most entitlement programs, the prospects for meaningful reform are as dim as the arguments from fear mongers.