{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://desjarlais.house.gov/media-center?ID=3CC17620-76E4-432D-9254-C4F67469635C", "Representative Scott DesJarlais Announces Winning YouCut Bill", "2011-12-11", "2011", "2011-12", "Republican", "House", "TN", "Scott DesJarlais", "D000616", "desjarlais.house.gov", "desjarlais", "https://desjarlais.house.gov/media-center", "scraper", "Representative Scott DesJarlais (TN-04) announced that \u201cStop Rewarding States for Recruiting Additional Food Stamp Recipients\u201d was the winner of last week\u2019s YouCut program. The congressman is now in the process of drafting legislation that will prevent the federal government from issuing bonuses to states for signing up additional food stamp recipients.\n\nCurrently, the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp program) pays state governments bonuses \u2013 with taxpayer dollars \u2013 for recruiting additional people to sign up for food stamps. Each year, states with the highest percentage of eligible participants enroll in the program and split $48 million in bonus funds. Additionally, the department awards another $6 million in bonus money to states that are the fastest at signing up new program applicants.\n\nEliminating this program will at least to $480 million dollars over ten years.\n\n\u201cThe fact that our government rewards states for recruiting individuals to be on food stamps is not just wasteful, it is ridiculous,\u201d said Representative Scott DesJarlais. \u201cWhy does the federal government need to incentivize states to spend taxpayer dollars with more taxpayer dollars? Government at all levels should strive to spend funds as efficiently as possible without the need for additional taxpayer funded bonuses.\u201d\n\n\u201cI want to thank my constituents for taking time to participate in the YouCut program. I\u2019m of the firm belief that the solutions to our nation\u2019s problems will be uncovered by directly involving the American people in the legislative process. Programs like YouCut give us another way to listen to the individuals that we represent so that we can bring their voices to Washington,\u201d noted DesJarlais.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T21:13:05Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://desjarlais.house.gov/media-center?ID=3CC17620-76E4-432D-9254-C4F67469635C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4175362884998322, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}