WASHINGTON — A U.S. Department of Agriculture official testified Thursday that some of the agency’s food programs are being overburdened in the push to feed needy families.
The acknowledgment came Thursday morning as Republicans on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee repeatedly hammered the USDA over a dramatic rise in its spending to update a nutrition program known as the Thrifty Food Plan.
“We are making changes to the federal nutrition programs to ensure that our support is meaningful and push the needle on that issue of food insecurity that you raise,” Stacy Dean, the USDA’s deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, told Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind. “But it’s also the case that I think some of our programs are being asked to do too much.”
