ICYMI – Klobuchar Op-Ed in The Washington Post: Republicans said they would cut waste. Instead, they rewarded it.

WASHINGTON - Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) published an op-ed in the Washington Post highlighting how, after Republicans promised to reduce waste, a last-minute carve-out in their "Big Beautiful Bill" actually rewards waste. The bill spares states that have the highest error rates from the bill's food assistance cuts - ultimately incentivizing states to make mistakes and rewarding waste.

From the op-ed:

"Though Republicans came into office this year claiming to prioritize the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse, they have instead done the unthinkable: They passed a policy that actually rewards waste. That's right - their budget bill explicitly gives states that have the most errors a reprieve from cuts to critical food assistance.

This provision was added during the sausage-making process behind the budget bill that President Donald Trump signed into law this month. Passed along party lines, the "One Big Beautiful Bill" strips health care from millions, while greatly increasing the debt to pay for extending tax cuts for the wealthiest.

This food-assistance policy change may not be the bill's worst provision, but it's certainly the most baffling - and it cuts directly against the GOP's supposedly urgent quest to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

Here's how it works. As has been well documented, the legislation drastically reduces the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP). Roughly one-third of the $186 billion in SNAP cuts come from shifting a larger portion of food and administrative costs to the states.

The stated reason for the cost shift is to incentivize states to lower error rates, which are calculated based on both overpayments and underpayments by states to recipients. Error rates do not measure fraud and are largely unintentional. For example, they can occur when a state miscalculates a household expense or a recipient forgets to update a change in their income. As part of the bill, Republicans included a feature in which states that get their error rates below 6 percent get a portion of their federal funding back as a reward.

Not every Republican was thrilled with the prospect of cutting their constituents' food assistance when they are struggling with high grocery prices. To get the vote of one senator, Republicans tried several gambits to carve out a special exemption from the new policy for Alaska. (The state that happens to have the highest SNAP error rate in the country.)

These kinds of state-specific provisions go against the rules of the budget process. So, to cover their tracks, Republicans added a carve-out for Hawaii in an ill-fated "these states are far away" attempt to gain the approval of the Senate parliamentarian.

When the parliamentarian saw through the ruse, they instead tried pushing through a carve-out for Alaska and the District of Columbia, which also has a high error rate. When the parliamentarian again said no, Republicans simply rewrote their special exemption in the dead of night to give states with the highest SNAP error rates special treatment across the board, with an up to two-year delay of the cost shift.

As a result, what started as an effort to lower error rates became a reward for states with the highest error rates, which now have every incentive to further botch their administrative process. This is the maddening hypocrisy of this so-called reform. Upend the very reason you claimed to make reform in the first place by rewarding errors? That happened."

Read the full op-ed here.

Permalink: https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/7/icymi-klobuchar-op-ed-in-the-washington-post-republicans-said-they-would-cut-waste-instead-they-rewarded-it