National overview
Praying sets a dangerous precedent
President Joe Biden’s recent executive order to extend food aid to U.S. households, although well-intentioned, represents a significant handover from the executive and a blatant attempt to overthrow the intent of Congress. If successful, this dangerous precedent would open the door to major expansions of the social safety net without congressional approval. Congress must resist the president’s efforts to undermine the intent of existing law. Less than a week into the Biden presidency, the new government has issued a series of executive orders focused on COVID-19 economic relief. One such order seeks to expand food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. In it, President Biden instructed the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to “take immediate steps to make it easier for the most disadvantaged families to enroll and offer broader benefits in the critical area of food and nutrition assistance.” In effect, the executive order is asking a federal agency – the USDA – to deliberately misinterpret the Families First Act and undermine the constitutional authority of Congress over the legislative process. The Families First Act, enacted in March 2020, clearly states that states may request the Department of Agriculture’s waiver to grant emergency allocations to SNAP households, “no greater than the applicable maximum monthly allowance for the household size. ” In normal times, 60 percent of the households enrolled in SNAP do not receive the maximum benefit because they have income from other sources – such as earnings – that they can use to purchase food. The emergency allocations recognized that millions of people lost their jobs or faced other work disruptions when the pandemic struck, and that those enrolled in SNAP had a particular risk of job loss in the early aftermath of the pandemic. Instead of SNAP households having to report a job or income change to their state agency and wait for bureaucrats to recalculate their benefits, the emergency allocations allowed each SNAP recipient the maximum. Admittedly, this was not a very effective endeavor. Some families received a boost in SNAP dollars without changing household income or financial circumstances. But the immediacy of the economic shock caused by the pandemic, and the instability in work that continues today, necessitated an equally favorable policy response. Under President Trump, the Department of Agriculture has approved emergency allocation plans for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the US Virgin Islands – but only in accordance with the law. The department has extended the waiver of emergency allocations several times and was recently extended to January 2021. The USDA – and Congress itself – have also offered states flexibility in the wake of the pandemic. According to federal government spending data, all of the efforts outlined above have increased SNAP benefits by more than 40 percent in the past fiscal year, by more than $ 31 billion in extra spending compared to fiscal year 2019. Class actions are filed in Pennsylvania and California by people who disagree with the USDA’s interpretation of the law: that regular SNAP plus emergency allocations cannot extend the benefits beyond the maximum benefit level. Lawyers for the lawsuits argue that the law allows the USDA to approve emergency allocations in the amount of the maximum benefit, which, if true, would mean that households could receive the maximum SNAP benefit plus the maximum emergency allocation – which is the benefit amount essentially doubled. A federal judge in California agrees with the USDA while the Pennsylvania case is ongoing. The executive order of the Biden administration encourages its USDA to misinterpret the 2020 law in a similar way. The legislation is not ambiguous. It is difficult to imagine that Congress is clearer than ‘to address temporary food needs not exceeding the appropriate maximum monthly allowance for the household size.’ If Congress wanted to give people more than the SNAP maximum, he would have done it. In fact, Congress finally did just that – extending the benefits by 15 percent in the COVID-19 relief package passed last month. If the Biden administration succeeds in this endeavor, it will open the door to a number of executive actions aimed at expanding the safety net without congressional action. If political appointments in the Biden administration feel unlimited by law, we will see greater benefits targeted at an increasing number of people. Such actions not only undermine the integrity of the social safety net by circulating in Congress, but disregard the separation of powers contained in the founding documents of our republic. The American public largely supports Congress’ efforts to provide economic relief to struggling households. Let us keep that authority in its proper place.