A WSJ Letters letter writer representing Share our Strength wrote to protest the paring back of Federal outlays to State SNAP programs. He had this early in his missive, and he was right:

We can agree that states should ensure eligible families get the proper benefits.

In the very next sentence, though, he had this contradiction:

But penalizing states without providing the resources to improve administration leaves more children hungry by pushing more parents away from SNAP.

The latter part of that may be true, but it’s not the Federal government’s responsibility to improve any State’s SNAP administration, nor is it the Federal government’s responsibility to provide resources for that improvement. Both of those requirements lie strictly and solely with the State involved.

And, using New York as his example, he offered this naked excusal for States’ failure to perform:

Honest mistakes can happen when overworked caseworkers using outdated technology to calculate benefits have to factor in a gig worker’s fluctuating income or a parent picking up occasional extra shifts.

If [New York] truly were serious about those error rates, it would satisfy its own (not the Federal government’s) responsibility and hire more (well-trained) caseworkers and upgrade the technology those caseworkers must use.

At bottom here is a State’s own decision regarding its own spending allocations. Nothing is stopping any State from changing what it chooses to fund and what set of Federal dollars it chooses to try to freeload off of.

All the Federal government can do, all it should do in our federal republic, is provide incentives to States to carry out their own responsibilities. Withholding financial transfers from States that choose to shirk their own responsibilities is a perfectly fine incentive, and one the Federal government should apply more broadly regarding money transfers to States.