The US Department of Agriculture has spent the past week notifying people that the country is (allegedly) overrun by individuals who are fraudulently claiming SNAP benefits, while (allegedly) driving luxury vehicles.
“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week. The official USDA account made similar claims, which were then amplified by figures like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul.
Those numbers are questionable at best. For one thing, the report they come from doesn’t name the state where thousands of people are allegedly buying Ferraris while using government money to buy food. For another, that report doesn’t include any explanation of its methodology.
I would rather 5 people abuse it than 1 person go hungry, but maybe I’m just civilized?
Either way we should attempt to curtail abuse, but with credit+debit+tax returns we could effectively combat egregious cases of abuse.
Should we? Sometimes it seems like the bureaucracy needed to do that costs more than the “waste” it saves. Frankly, I’m inclined to just ditch the means-testing entirely, declare that it isn’t “wrong” for people who aren’t poor to also use it, and (as you alluded to) make it up on the back end via income taxes.
this could also massively boost overall public health because if everyone automatically got SNAP, they’d have no incentive to try to save money by buying shitty cheap convenience food
a lot of people would be able to spend the extra few dollars to get the frozen dinner with more vegetables, the fresh (cold) deli sandwich, the whole grain higher fiber options, etc.
and since you can’t use it on takeout/restaurants, a bunch of people are now more motivated to cook at home with their free food money (even if the cooking is just heating up prepared stuff that’s often healthier than fast food)
after 10 years or so we’d probably save billions in public health costs alone
I think you would have to be a moron to not advocate for the curtailing of obvious abuse, or utilizing resources from other departments to assist with enforcement, or just have thorough screening that blocks abuse before it occurs.
I stand by my statement.
So let me get this straight: you think spending more money overall to provide aid to fewer people is A-OK, and yet I’m somehow the moron for wanting to save money and help more people?
That’s some hateful fucking bullshit on your part. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I’m sorry I called you a moron via the transitive property, I meant that more like its obvious, I realize that was a mistake.
You’re making a lot of choices for me and putting words in my mouth, and I don’t think our conversation will be productive from this point because you are not even considering my statements.
I hope you have an excellent day.
There are lots of things that seem “obvious,” but are actually wrong. The idea that you have to means-test aid to avoid “abuse” (according to some presupposed definition of “abuse” that ought to itself be debatable, BTW) may or may not be one of them, but what is definitive is that you’d have to be a moron to not even be willing to think about it first.