The House voted today to slash the SNAP program by $40 billion dollars. SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as The Food Stamps Program, is not only good policy for the fact that is helps families put much needed food on the table during touch economic times but is an economic booster to our economy as a whole. Every $5 dollars in new SNAP spending benefits generated $9.00 in total community spending. Since the SNAP program is increasing in correlation with the unemployment we would assume policy makers would want to provide people assistance with their food needs while simultaneously improving the overall economic output. It turns out that the SNAP program
SNAP is not only an economic booster to our economy the SNAP program has 98% accuracy rate for eligible households. The program goes through a rigorous measurement analysis pooling a sample size of 50,000 participants in the program to thoroughly review for fraudulent payments. In fact the program goes through such a rigorous analysis for misappropriated payments that we have actually seen a decline in the program. According to one internal audit only 3% of over payments were actually made to recipients.
As far as sound public policy is concerned the SNAP program is an important aspect of not only our collective responsibility to help those in need through government action but this is a cost effective program that have high returns for all society.