Republicans should use the Farm Bill to repeal the 2021 Thrifty Food Plan.

Leslie Ford, Ms. Ford is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Opportunity and Social Mobility. She served on the White House Domestic Policy Council, 2018-20., June 7th, 2023, “Don’t Give Away the Farm Bill”, Wall Street Journal, , liam.

Republicans have one more chance to roll back out-of-control welfare spending this year. The farm bill—must-pass legislation that authorizes food stamps and other agriculture programs—will be voted on by December. GOP lawmakers should focus on reining in President Biden’s unprecedented and expensive food-stamp hike.

The American Rescue Plan’s temporary 15% increase in food-stamp benefits was set to expire shortly after Mr. Biden took office in 2021. To prevent a decrease in benefits, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rushed out a new Thrifty Food Plan. Since 1975, the USDA has calculated the Thrifty Food plan to demonstrate the cost of a healthy diet, helping families find nutritious food on a budget. It serves as the benchmark for food stamps, also called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

By increasing the Thrifty Food Plan, the Biden administration took an unprecedented step. One of the reasons for the decision was that “the body weights of Americans have increased.” This is to say, food-stamp recipients should get more money because Americans weigh more. The USDA concluded that benefits should expand by about 23%—significantly surpassing the 15% increase that was about to expire. This boost went into effect on Oct. 1, 2021, the day after the temporary increase ended.

But the Thrifty Food Plan’s limits have always been understood and accepted, never used to increase SNAP benefits. Food-stamp benefits are already increased in other ways, notably through an annual inflation update. In the 2018 farm bill, the Congressional Budget Office continued to assume a routine update to the Thrifty Food Plan wouldn’t cost taxpayers a penny.

Owing to the revised Thrifty Food Plan, taxpayers are now on track to pay about $200 billion more in food stamps in the next 10 years. In fiscal 2020, which included the severest months of the pandemic, the food-stamp program cost about $74.2 billion. It jumped to more than $108 billion in 2021 and $113 billion in 2022. While some of this increase comes from the extra 4.3 million people on the food-stamp rolls during the pandemic, the Biden administration’s manipulation of the Thrifty Food Plan accounts for the vast majority of the extra spending.

That spending increase is set to continue indefinitely unless Republicans in Congress stop it. They can use the farm bill to rein in spending—and there’s already an appetite to do so. In August 2021, Republican leaders on the House Agriculture Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry requested that the Government Accountability Office investigate the USDA’s decision to increase benefits. In 2022 the GAO concluded that “officials made this update without key project management and quality assurance practices in place.” In other words, the administration put politics ahead of good governance.

The USDA also failed to use the standard regulatory review to update the Thrifty Food Plan, which would have required public notice and comment and submitting the final rule to lawmakers under the Congressional Review Act. In July 2022, the GAO ruled the expansion is subject to congressional review.

Lawmakers can still prevent another hike in benefits in the 2026 Thrifty Food Plan update. Yet that wouldn’t roll back the spending for which taxpayers are already on the hook. The better option is to use the upcoming farm bill to repeal the 2021 Thrifty Food Plan and reset benefits to pre-American Rescue Plan levels, indexed to inflation. This would save taxpayers up to $20 billion a year.

Since 2021, nearly 80% of the farm bill’s spending has been dedicated to food stamps. It’s wrong for a rogue agency to hike that spending without congressional input in pursuit of blatantly partisan ends. Now that the debt-ceiling deal is done, Republicans must take action to protect taxpayers and restore sanity to welfare.