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“DECREASING RATES OF FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE IN SNAP” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4527-H4528 on July 17, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DECREASING RATES OF FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE IN SNAP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, 18 times this year I've come to this floor and talked about the need to end hunger now. Eighteen times I've defended our Nation's anti-hunger programs, discussed the paradox of hunger and obesity, and talked about hunger among the elderly.
Over the past few weeks, this House has voted on two versions of a farm bill reauthorization. The first was defeated after the Republican leadership overreached, not only by cutting the linchpin of our anti-
hunger programs, SNAP--formerly known as food stamps--but also by adding poison pill after poison pill amendment to the bill.
Last week, the Republican leadership responded to the stinging defeat of their farm bill by stripping out the entire nutrition title while, at the same time, expanding subsidies for highly profitable big agribusinesses. Talk about messed up priorities, Mr. Speaker. By the way, the nutrition title not only includes SNAP, it includes as well funding for food banks and senior anti-hunger programs.
Opponents of SNAP like to focus on the idea that SNAP is somehow fraudulent; not just that some SNAP money is being misspent, but that so much is being wasted that we need to drastically rein in the program, regardless of whether SNAP cuts increase hunger in America. We heard these claims time after time during consideration of the two farm bills.
Sadly, those who claim rampant fraud, waste, and abuse in SNAP don't let facts get in the way of their arguments. That is because SNAP is among the most effective and efficient, if not the most effective and efficient, federally administered programs.
I serve on the House Agriculture Committee, and I took part in an extensive debate over SNAP during both the committee markup and on the House floor. Not one member, Democrat or Republican, on the House Agriculture Committee provided sourced, statistical information on fraud, waste, and abuse in the SNAP program.
On top of that, no hearings were held on the SNAP program at all. In fact, I challenged any member of the committee to find any Federal program that has a lower rate of fraud, waste, and abuse. The truth is no one could answer my challenge.
Mr. Speaker, according to both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Office of the Inspector General at USDA, the fraud rates for SNAP are at all-time lows and are going down. On top of that, USDA continues to pursue instances of fraud, waste, and abuse and is prosecuting these cases.
Despite the rapid growth in SNAP participation, primarily due to the historic economic recession we are still recovering from, the error rate for SNAP is also at a record low, according to the latest data available. Specifically, 3 percent of all SNAP benefits represented overpayments, meaning they either went to ineligible households or went to eligible households but in excessive amounts. This means that more than 98 percent of SNAP benefits were issued to eligible households. The combined error rate--the total error rate that includes both under- and overpayments--reached an all-time low in 2011, falling to 3.8 percent.
These statistics show just how well SNAP is truly managed. But there's even more data to consider. In July, the USDA's Office of Inspector General issued a report on fraud investigations of USDA programs. It showed that fraud in SNAP is limited primarily to a few bad actors. It also showed cases of fraud are far greater in other USDA programs.
According to this report, 10 cases involving USDA programs were closed in the past 2 months, and only one of them involved fraud on the part of a SNAP recipient. That's right, only 1 case in 10 had to do with an individual defrauding the SNAP program. In fact, half of those cases dealt with improper use of rural development funds. The remaining four cases all involved SNAP abuse by retailers, not recipients.
While this may seem like an innocuous statistic, it goes to the heart of what opponents claim: that SNAP beneficiaries--poor, hungry working Americans--are lazy and want to steal from the Federal Government. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could be further from the truth.
SNAP provides a lifeline to hungry Americans, whether they are 1, 10, 25, 50, 75 years old or older. In doing so, SNAP is likely the most effective and efficient program administered by the Federal Government.
Mr. Speaker, of course we can make SNAP better. We can make anything better. We can make it more efficient. We can ensure that even more people get the food they need to prevent hunger in America. But we need to address hunger in a holistic and comprehensive way, including the role SNAP plays in preventing and treating hunger. This is why we need a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition if we are going to truly reduce hunger and improve nutrition in this country. We need a plan. We need to get this right. We need some urgency and some leadership on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, attacking SNAP, and demonizing those who rely on it to make ends meet isn't just wrong, it's counterproductive. Arbitrarily cutting SNAP will only make hunger in America worse, and it certainly won't reduce the rates of fraud, waste, and abuse. The SNAP program works. While it can always be improved, we can't simply cut our way to a hunger-free society. We must work together if we are going to end hunger now.
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