Our food stamps at work...

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ProdigalHorn

10,000+ Posts
So I go to 7-11 for a snack and two guys at the door ask me if I'm buying food products. I say yes, and one of them walks in with me talking low. He explains that he'll be glad to buy my food for me on his food stamps debit card. The reason he's doing this, he explains, is that then he can choose the "cash back" option on the card and pull cash.

I'm not sure which irritated me more - that we have such a horrible program with little or no barriers to fraud and just increased the funding by 30 percent in the last two years, or that this guy had no problem explaining the whole thing to me thinking that I wouldn't care that he's defrauding a federal program and wasting my tax dollars.
 
So frustrating. Yet if anyone would propose even a 1% cut in this great program, there would be screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth over stealing milk from starving babies.
mad.gif


Sanity is not allowed when it comes to government cheese.
 
left wing philosophy:

responsible government and penalizing fraud = fascism/not caring for the little guy/racist teabaggers at it again

Fraud, corruption and administrative waste=good government

If there isnt enough money to pay for something because of waste, threaten calls of riots and racism and cut essential serives to piss off the tax payers.
 
Shouldn't this be a reason for reform to and not a reason to make major cuts. You make major cuts and those that actually need the food allotment, families, children, end up paying the price for others' exploiting the system. Why do ya'll jump to cuts? Let's eliminate the cash back option.

And by the way, are you sure this was the case? I didn't think i twas possible to get cash from the cards. The reason we went ot the cards is because the food stamps would be sold below value for cash. It seems strange they would make such an oversight. Maybe he wanted to buy your food and you give him below value cash? That would make more sense.
 
There's also an acceptable amount of fraud wiht these programs. Every measure should be taken to eliminate it but if 5% take advantage of the system, I think it's okay to accept that loss to help the 95% that need the help and use it as intended.
 
Did someone make a serious proposal for major cuts? I don't think so. The most "radical" cutter I've heard about is Rand Paul, and he's proposing a REAL 1% cut. I would not call that "MAJOR": I'm pretty confident we could find 1% to cut in waste throughout government.
 
Your initial response seemed to advocate cuts. You ridiculed those that would be against it. If you're against those that are against the cuts, wouldn't you be for them?
 
And this across the board cuts is BS. What if an agency is already running at maximum efficiency and you cut 1%. Why 1%? Why not 2% or 3% or 20%? If you want to cut government spending you do it item by item...not just arbitrarily slashing. Therte's a reason why that's the unacceptable penalty for the subcommittee failing
 
That cashback should be addressed immediately. That makes getting cash easier than with the paper stamps. Why couldn't the guy just buy a snickers and get cash back like we do? Did you have to be involved?
 
In answer to your question, I'm actually not sure why he couldn't just do it himself. Maybe he felt like it would somehow be less suspicious? It's not like these guys were polished professionals or anything, it may just have never occurred to them.

BWT I'm in Nevada, so it's not specifically the program you linked, but it could be something similar to it.
 
TANF is federal program, but I think it's up to the states how to distribute funds. Again if it's TANF, it's still fraud but alteast the set up is justifiable.
 
What annoys me most about these entitlement programs is the lack of objective benefit analysis and look-back. We have had 40+ years of the Great Society programs and the so-called "war on poverty". What have the US taxpayers gotten for their investment? Percentage of Americans below the poverty line is actually higher when compared to 1970. These programs have been complete failures.
 
cyclist Ok this make me really laugh, "What if an agency is already running at maximum efficiency and you cut 1%. "

name 1 gov't agency that is running at ' maxium efficiency. Just one

as far as programs being for the children, Absolutely for sure if a child is hungry or needs care use the programs for that, always use a program for that
with schools providing 2 meals and in most cases a take home snack and nearly all doing this all year and with mothers receiving WIC and then food stamps if a child is going hungry it is the mother/ parents fault
NOT due to lack of gov't help..
BTW any cuts being mentioned now are cuts to increases.
hardly the doom of any program
 
If programs can never run at maximum efficiency then why stop at 1% why not 50% or eliminate all programs? At some point it's as good as it's going to get and cuts will disrupt the fulfillment of the program's role. I'm not saying cuts shouldn't be done, but not across the board blind cuts. That's just foolish. No business would approach budget cuts that way, why should the government?
 
What if the role of programs are growing at a consistent rate? Should not budget increases above inflation be justified there? I just talked to a principal at as school district, which has had a lot of population growth. The funding is way behind the growth, so they have class sizes of 29. We should cut that? I know that's not necessarily a federal issue, but an example of why advocacy of across the board cuts is untenable.
 
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