Food and Drug Administration officials believe they should be funded when they fail. In their 2023 budget request, they ask for a 34 percent increase, to $8.4 billion, from direct and indirect taxpayer funding (i.e., user fees). In 2019, the FDA’s budget was only $5.7 billion. From 2000 to 2021, it increased by 541 percent. As food writer Matt Siegel put it, many believe that the “FDA is too overtasked and underfunded.”This perspective is half right.