-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Food Stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is a target for Republicans who voted to cut $40 billion from the program. The reasons that Republicans have given are so divorced from reality that one can reasonably suspect their true motivations lie elsewhere. The primacy of fantasy in the GOP has been recently evidenced by Michele Bachmann who sees signs of the End Times, a wished-for global apocalypse.
First up on the list of fantasies is by Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas) who said “the food stamp program [grew] exponentially because the government continues to turn a blind eye to a system fraught with abuse.” In reality, SNAP participation closely tracks the long term unemployment rate, prolonged by Republicans. The sale of SNAP benefits for cash, called “trafficking,” has been cut to $1 in every $100 of SNAP benefits. The reality is a one percent abuse rate, the fantasy is SNAP is “fraught” with abuse.
The next fantasy is that able-bodied people are getting food stamps instead of working. The reality is that 83% of all SNAP benefits go to households that include a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person. The average individual gets $133 a month in SNAP benefits. It is ridiculous to imagine that a person is going to quit their job for $133 a month that can only be spent on food, but Republicans bear ridicule well.
The next fantasy is that SNAP recipients use their benefits to buy cigarettes and alcohol. The SNAP program uses Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, similar to debit cards, that can be used in the supermarket checkout line only to purchase food. The Right likes to point to Jackie Whiton, a Peterborough, New Hampshire, store cashier who declined to accept an EBT card as payment for a pack of cigarettes. In reality, the EBT card contained state assistance money, not SNAP benefits, which can be used to purchase tobacco products. The store she worked for has a policy of accepting EBT cash benefits. In reality, Whiton was fired for violating the company’s policies.
The Republican war on programs that benefit Americans in need isn’t based on a philosophical commitment to small government. If it were, the $20 billion in farm subsidies, a welfare program for agribusiness, would be near the top of their hit list. According to a Greenberg report, the Republicans “are very conscious of being white in a country that is increasingly minority.” The report goes on to say that the “race issue [is] very much alive.” There you have it. Obama is taking their money and giving it to “Those People.”
H/T: Dave Johnson, Paul Krugman, Dottie Rosenbaum, Amanda Marcotte, Brian Tashman, WMUR.
You can discuss unfounded speculation all you like, nick.
That’s what anecdote is good for.
So there is that.
Carry on.
Gene, The stats you and others produced had nothing to do w/ street fraud, the subject we’re discussing. So, your facts were fraudulent as presented for this discussion. A bad faith effort and dishonest, not just intellectually. However, to show I don’t engage in those bad faith tactics like your gang, I feel compelled to remind you forgot TonyC’s honest friends and family! There is absolutely no fraud in their land of Oz. So, there’s that. Carry on.
“Gene, The stats you and others produced had nothing to do w/ street fraud, the subject we’re discussing.”
On the contrary, what you call street fraud is referred to as trafficking in the report of August 2013 and is exactly and specifically what that 1.3% number refers to.
Somebody is going to have to run over to the library or we will have to wait till the government opens up again so we can all download the report and see what they say about trafficking/street fraud.
I don’t doubt that there are places where around the first of the month one can sit and see people buying and selling EBT cards loaded with SNAP and disability funds.
I have not been in DC for a few years. But years ago, that was not an unusual sight in the McDonald’s at First and New York Avenue, NE. And there was sometimes enough activity that a reasonable observer might say the activity was rampant.
I just have to question whether activity in and around First and New York Avenue, NE during the first week or 10 days of the month was really, really representative of the 147,327 recipients (January 2013) of SNAP funds in DC.
And my skepticism also applies to other people who live in the real world and tell us about rampant criminal activity they observed in one business or in one apartment building.
I don’t doubt their personal observations at all. The question that has to be answered is how representative are those observations of the entire program.
MikeS, I do remember that grandfatherly speech. Seems so long ago, maybe just a lotta miles ago. Is it on a boilerplate.
You’re the one claiming claiming widespread blackmarket use, nick.
That burden of proof rests with you.
Otherwise, you’ve got anecdote and supposition. Being reinforced to you by people who have nothing but anecdote and supposition.
How very surprising.
Produce a fraud study, not an eligibility one, that’s not what we’re talking about. Otherwise, you got nuthin’. Carry on.
Shouting will not change that.
Again, anecdotal evidence. Given the total data set, 3 is an inadequate sample space.
There has NEVER been anything even resembling a thorough and complete investigation of on the street, trafficking w/ cards for booze, drugs, cash, etc. Some media outlets have done them and they comport w/ the FACTS myself and two other recipients have experienced.
This study was about eligibility requirements, not fraud. Have you read it??
PMJ,
This brings up an interesting but ancillary reason that anecdotal evidence is insufficient as evidence: you see what you see – we’ll take that as a given – but across the whole system what you are seeing are probably either statistical outliers or a cluster (both of which can happen in large data sets). You may just be unfortunate enough to live in a spot where fraud in unusually high, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a statistical truth when the whole set is accounted for.
And if the GAO had a problem with the FNS’ data gathering methodology, they’d have initiated an investigation of that sua sponte. Why? Because it’s their job.
Not understanding how the GAO works is cramping your whatever it is, nick.
Carry on.
I do not want to hurt this program. I have said here several times I strongly support nutrition programs, particularly for children. The “nutrition” breakfast program for kids was scandalous. Don’t try and hang that ideological horseshit on me, there’s a record of what I’ve said.
FNS[Food and Nutrition Services] conducted the data gathering. FNS is a division of USDA. The GAO report is merely an analysis of the self investigation. That’s why the GAO continually uses the word “estimates” in their document. You neglected to mention that after analyzing the self investigation by FNS/USDA the GAO says CLOSER SCRUTINY is needed. I read this yesterday and that’s why I called for a GAO investigation. This is a USDA investigation. And, the investigation was not about fraud as much as it was about eligibility. We’re talking about buying booze, drugs, getting cash, for SNAP cards. Ideology is cramping your critical thinking skills. Carry on.
Elaine,
You have to stop bringing facts into this discussion of alleged food stamp fraud.
Whatever you want to think, nick, but the facts are the USDA doesn’t do the audits and produce the statistics relevant to SNAP fraud. The GAO does. They are accountants and statisticians and to my knowledge the GAO hasn’t got a sense of humor or a partisan agenda (one of the only agencies that doesn’t have one in some way). The GAO is accountable to every agency they audit and Congress as well and that accountability centers on their ability to perform their duties accurately and truthfully. Even in government, much like business, there are some things you cannot spin. These kind of audits are one of those things. With the exceptions of the black budget (an entirely different ball of wax) which they remain mostly silent on except in broad terms, their job is factual and reality based. Even if you allow for a reasonable MOE, an error rate of between 1-2% (as reported), the total rate of error if the MOE is maximum is still around 5% which given the size of the total program is not unacceptable.
Now contrast this to the stats produced by the IG of the NSA concerning surveillance abuses and consider that the IG reports directly and only to the NSA director and that this information was based on an internal audit. That’s a good example of self-policing gone severely wrong and no one in their right mind should trust that data.
But the GAO numbers vis a vis SNAP are reliable with a fairly high interval of confidence. They don’t have a horse in that race. Their neutrality and adherence to factual data are their entire raison d’être.
So yes, I do think that the fraud rates for the program are low and low enough at a systemic level to be a false cause for alarm let alone merit calling for reducing or eliminating the program.
And I think people who are up in arms about it have bought a pig in a poke sold to them by propagandists with a distinct agenda that is most certainly not the general welfare of the American citizenry.
No tongue biting required.
@Mike Spindell
I appreciate your reply and if I am correct, you are saying I am more then welcome here and I apologize for anything I may have said before that was uncalled for.
I am not trying to claim things I do not know for sure and wish others could have a rational discussion about welfare fraud.
In the end though, well at lets for me, its not really about welfare fraud anymore, its about trying to show how statistics and data on things, especially illegal activities are not accurate.
Welfare fraud just happens to be the current subject matter.
There is no damn way they have legit info and can not possibly know if I give my card to “Joe drug man” and his wife uses it and feeds them and I end up broke, hungry, and begging the rest of the month.
Obviously, we can only go by what their data says right?
Obviously people like me who know that data is severally inaccurate because we are in the actual system and just about everyone we know are in the system too, mean nothing to those who are just going by the data right?
That is what is fueling my desire to be here.
Again, I apologize for things I said before that may have offended you
“Obviously people like me who know that data is severally inaccurate because we are in the actual system and just about everyone we know are in the system too, mean nothing to those who are just going by the data right?”
PMJ,
There is no need to apologize since you haven’t offended me. As a Guest Blogger and as a long time denizen of this blog I feel protective towards it. By the way the GB’s do have off line discussions all the time and sometimes, though rarely we discuss individual commenters. In all of the discussions I have been against banning anyone from this blog. In its history two people have been banned. One for cyber-stalking someone who comments here and the other for someone who went completely over the top with comments attacking another commenter. The second person banned was someone I liked, but they crossed a line in Prof. Turley’s mind. Everyone is welcome here and you know doubt have noticed that includes some people who are severely disenchanted with this blog and its GB’s. People who comment here come from many different places and have many different styles. That makes it interesting and with some their interest is in “busting balls” as they have put it.
Perhaps I take life too seriously, but I don’t come here to “bust balls” or to start arguments. I was almost dead almost three years ago and was brought back to life via a heart transplant. Since then especially, I see the world from a different perspective and to have been so fortunate I feel I have to repay it by trying in my small, ineffective way to make the world a better place. That’s why I spend many hours weekly working on this blog and obviously why I’m protective over it.
Regarding your quote above I’m not only going by the data, but by the fact that as I explained above I actually worked dealing with fraud in the program. I know how it operates and remain in touch with people who are running it in NYC. As far as drug addiction, my last 6 years before I became disabled, I created and ran four programs dealing with drug addiction located in the type of neighborhoods you described. I am a social worker and psychotherapist whose entire career was spent working in and around what were considered some of the worst neighborhoods in NYC and that career spanned 39 years.
Should I believe my own knowledge and eyes regarding Food Stamps, or yours or anyone else’s anecdotes?
Shrinks deal w/ Food Stamp fraud???There’s the problem right there. Was my routinely buying beer w/ Food Stamps, as well as many other classmates, a “perception” of Fraud? Naw…it was flat ass fraud. Was it easy? Yeah. Did I see rampant fraud in that flood zone. Oh yeah. Where there is government money, there is fraud. Where there is a lot of government money, there is a lot of fraud.
Elaine, Would you trust the NSA to audit themselves? Of course you wouldn’t. Would you trust the military to audit their programs? No freakin’ way. Then why the hell do you place so much trust in the USDA investigating themselves??? Because it fits your world view, that’s why.
And, I think Gene isn’t buying this 1%? Come on, you can say it. And the biting of the tongue is not about disagreeing, it’s that it’s not being done w/ the vitriol of even the recent past. Those tongues are being bitten for some reason. Carry on.
Bobby, You’re not biting your tongue, just waggin’ it per usual.
Would someone please re-install the “Like this” button?
I liked the behavior of this thread, so much more, when it was a jumpin’ place.