The Tax Bill Rewards States for Higher Rates of Food Stamp Fraud
Fraud in the food stamp program is already a huge problem that costs federal taxpayers around $10 billion annually.
The Senate might have just made that problem worse.
A provision included in the major tax and spending bill that senators narrowly approved on Tuesday could give states a powerful incentive to make their food stamp fraud rates worse—because that’s one way to dodge funding cuts included in another part of the bill.
That special loophole appears to have been added to the bill to get Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) and Dan Sullivan (R–Alaska) to vote for the package. As Politico reported earlier this week, the two senators were opposed to a provision in the tax bill that would require states to cover a share of costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps. Alaska has the highest food stamp error rate in the country—an astonishing 60 percent in 2023, though that figure dropped to 24 percent last year.
Forcing states to cover some of the cost of food stamps would be a big change for how the program operates, and one that is long overdue. “The federal government pays for 100 percent of the benefits, so state administrators have little incentive to crack down on theft,” Chris Edwards, chair of fiscal policy for the Cato Institute, and a longtime advocate of food stamp reform, tells Reason. While most states are not swindling federal taxpayers as often as Alaska does, more than $1 in every $10 s
Article from Reason.com
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