Inconvenient Truths About Food Stamps

A mammoth, bipartisan farm bill authorizing $1 trillion in spending on agricultural subsidies and nutrition programs became law last week after President Obama affixed his signature to the measure, ending three years of Congressional wrangling.  

Obama's signing represents a flip-flop for the president, who threatened to veto the bill if it contained even one iota of cuts in food stamp spending.  The compromise measure snips one percent from the food stamp budget over a five-year period.  Obama even praised the bipartisan bill.

Although it is known officially as the farm bill, about 80 percent of the budget is dedicated to the food stamp program, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Congress lumps the agricultural subsidies in the budget to gain bipartisan support and to camouflage food stamp spending.

Food stamp outlays have spiraled out of control, nearly doubling over the last six years.  Taxpayers shelled out $47 billion to 26 million recipients in 2007.  Last year, spending surged to nearly $80 billion and the number of beneficiaries skyrocketed to a record 47 million.

Until this year, it has been considered political suicide to tackle the swollen food stamp budget.  Democrats have used the media to insulate the program from oversight, ignoring the waste, fraud and inflated overhead rooted in the federal bureaucracy.

The truth is reductions can be made in the food stamp budget without harming the needy.  Here are a few facts that underscore what a lousy job the federal government has done in administering the food stamp program and portend areas of potential budget savings:

• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently investigated federal food assistance programs and found overlap, inefficiency and wasted resources.  The non-partisan agency reported administrative costs amounted to $5.5 billion a year or about 10 percent of the value of food stamps distributed to recipients.
• The federal government supplies one-third of the population of Puerto Rico with food stamps.  That makes the United States territory one of the highest consumers of government food assistance.  The annual cost to American taxpayers is about $2 billion. Yet Puerto Rican residents pay no personal income taxes to the U.S. Treasury.   
• In its latest review of the food stamp program, the GAO uncovered food stamp overpayments amounting to $2.26 billion in a single year.  Overpayments include fraud, food stamp trafficking and eligibility errors. The Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, has a measly total of 40 investigators to ferret out fraud.  That's why many believe current fraud is grossly understated.  
• In 1999, the agriculture department adopted a new rule that relaxed eligibility rules, fueling the massive expansion in food stamp spending.  In its infinite wisdom, the department created something called Broad Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE).  Under the rule, Americans can claim food stamps if they receive any assistance from a temporary government program.  This allows people to skip income tests for eligibility.  An inspector general found that 17.6 percent of BBCE-qualified food stamp recipients lived in households with incomes that exceeded federal limits.
• Once people receive food stamps, they very seldom leave the program.  A Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that 40.8 percent of food stamp recipients have collected benefits for ten years or longer.  Another 28.9 percent of beneficiaries had been on the food stamp dole for five-to-ten years.  The food stamp program was never designed as an ongoing entitlement.  It was supposed to serve as temporary, emergency assistance for needy families instead of encouraging long-term dependency.  

In addition to the facts cited above, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence about food stamp chicanery. For instance, a recent $2 million lottery winner in Michigan continued to receive food stamps. Under federal guidelines, lottery winnings are not counted as income if the person takes the lump sum option.

The nation's broken food stamp program is beyond repair.  Even if it could be fixed, no one in Congress has the political fortitude to reform an entitlement program that has been swaddled in a humanitarian cocoon that protects it from legitimate scrutiny.  

Religious and charitable organizations like the Food For The Poor do a much better job of optimizing resources to put food in the hands of the hungry without bureaucratic overhead and waste.  The government should exit the business and use those taxpayer dollars to let local groups feed the poor.