Your editorial “A Senate Food Fight on Welfare Waste” (Review & Outlook, Aug. 18) argues Republicans should not offer a compromise that provides states an additional year to lower their SNAP payment error rates in order to advance a bipartisan farm bill. Allowing states a one-year extension to comply with new SNAP cost-sharing requirements isn’t abandoning accountability. Improper payments reflect both unintentional administrative mistakes as well as overpayments, and our common-sense reforms to strengthen eligibility requirements have proven successful. The intent of Congress was to incentivize states to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, not derive penalties from the sloppy mismanagement of SNAP administration. States have historically been able to get their error rates below 6%, demonstrating this standard is attainable.

This reform clearly has states’ attention. Now that they have skin in the game, they are working to improve their administration of benefits and maintain a low error rate.