Finstad statement at SNAP hearing

House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Chairman Brad Finstad (MN-01) delivered the following opening statement at today's subcommittee hearing, “Exploring State Options in SNAP.”

Remarks as prepared: 

Good morning, and welcome to this morning’s hearing on examining state options in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today and for sharing their expertise on this important topic.Before getting into the main focus of today’s hearing, I want to set the record straight on the reforms to SNAP included in the Working Family Tax Cuts Bill, or H.R.1, and dispel  some of the false narratives I know we will hear in this room today. 

• First and foremost, H.R. 1 protects and strengthens SNAP’s ability to serve our most vulnerable neighbors in need.

• We are stopping federal and state executive overreach that has eroded once bipartisan work requirements for able bodied adults without young children. 

• We are finally creating real accountability incentives for states with high payment error rates, which I will remind everybody, hurt the participant first and foremost.

• And we are protecting the hardworking American taxpayer who has been footing a $100 billion dollar annual SNAP bill that increased by close to 70 percent in five years. 

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No one in this room should be defending 10 billion dollars a year in Federal SNAP benefits going out the door incorrectly. 

Nor should they defend 40 percent of able-bodied adults without children on SNAP living under state waivers of work requirements without the economic conditions to warrant them.But this was the status quo before H.R. 1. The facts are that this program was on an unsustainable trajectory, and H.R. 1 is putting it on a better path. SNAP must be based on the goal of reaching nutrition independence, financial independence, and the American dream.I also need to address the ongoing fearmongering by some leaders in Minnesota about how the Working Families Tax Cuts bill will impact our counties. 

Minnesota, along with nine other states, has chosen to administer SNAP at the county level. In fact, this is one of several state options that Congress allows. I want to be very clear and set the record straight. States are not required to push SNAP costs, neither administrative nor potential benefit costs, to the counties.