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.
The Gang of Pedos has never let something as trivial as evidence guide their world view. Also not big fans of consent.
Why should it ever stop them? There has never been any evidence in anything they have ever accused.
They make the accusations then they rely on their propaganda machine, AKA literally all of media at this point, to put out their version of things to the entire nation before the truth has a chance to even circulate locally.
I’d rather a hundred people get benefits they “don’t need” than have one person go without the support they require.
Not that it’s even happening, but even if it were I really wouldn’t care even a little bit.
Yeah, why aren’t we talking about all the fraud committed by billionaire oligarchs and trump and his inner circle?
When you influence or you are the people who write the rules, is not fraud, it’s smart investing
I remember some Republican chud or another saying they’d rather have innocent people imprisoned than let a single criminal walk free. Absolutely cannot fathom that mindset. Completely ghoulish.
What they mean is innocent people who don’t look like them. The moment there’d be any danger of them being locked up, they’d fine-tune their opinion to find a reason why it doesn’t apply to their case.
I mean i can imagine it, it’s just patently anti-American. Benjamin Franklin is widely quoted as saying “I’d rather let 100 guilty persons go, than imprison one innocent person.”
No, that was William Blackstone. Maybe Ben Franklin also quoted it, but he’s not the one who was famous for it.
I feel like if someone quotes another person and then that quote becomes associated with them more thoroughly it would count as famously said. Doesn’t stop the first person from being a thing just a matter of having less fame or relevance.
In principle, maybe, but I’m fairly well-read and I have literally never heard of that quote being attributed to Ben Franklin until the earlier comment so I don’t think that’s the case here.
Could be down to a bias of what you are exposed to, which can heavily influence what you hear. Anyways I think it was in one of his letters but I can’t quite remember cause I just woke up.
Apparently you’re right: the other reply cites the letter.
But still, Ben Franklin is famous for a ton of stuff, including actual published works full of quotable aphorisms like Poor Richard’s Almanack (as opposed to some random private letter that was only published after-the-fact). Meanwhile, Blackstone is remembered mainly just for Commentaries on the Laws of England, of which the Blackstone’s Ratio quote is part. Can’t we let poor old Mr. Blackstone have this one thing?!
Blackstone said ten, Franklin restated it as 100
Guess who said they’re fine having legal Hispanic citizens abducted from their homes and thrown in
SSICE camps if it means they’re actually getting some illegal immigrants
Yeah, nobody commits that level of petty fraud if their life is going well.
If you want food stamps badly enough to jump through the hoops required, then that should qualify you by default.
They honestly waste more resources on gatekeeping and means testing than they would ever save, and it’d LITERALLY cost less to just provide the same baseline benefits to everyone
Like maybe 25 years back I remember a viral video of someone in Cali or something buying a lobster with his food stamps and everyone was freaking out. I dont know much of the american food stamps system but I’m pretty sure just blew his budget or something. Really its just proved some idiot was doing dumb stuff for likes before TikTok.
Generally, any food product is going to be eligible. They give you a bank card that has your monthly funds on it. Prepared products such as from the delicatessen, alcohol, and cigarettes will be blocked but there’s not much else to stop someone from letting their benefits add up and then wasting them on something like lobster.
You don’t want to make this entire thing onerous for everyone, so there will be some activity like this occassionally. It’s not even something that would appear outside the statistical noise.
I was on SNAP several years ago. We saved a small bit of the relatively meager amount every month for like 6 months, then had a really nice BBQ for my kids bday. In a vacuum, I’m sure someone would have lost their shit watching me spend like $150 on steaks and burgers and sides using my SNAP card.
I think its really cool it rolls over like that. My old boss losses his crap if he sees the old save on food to splurge later. “If the peasants can survive on less than they should” mentality. Bloke also said ppl should feel more shame on the system and the cards was bypassing that shame. Can really feel the privilege from that guy. Ugh
Fuck it. I’d rather give free meals to everyone than pay one fucking penny towards the missiles we hurled into an elementary school. People gotta get their fucking priorities straight.
Enjoy that BBQ, I hope you have long lasting happy and guilt-free memories about that day. Money well spent in my mind.
The only reason thats any different than just saving your own regular money for it and blowing that on the exact same thing is the optics.
Like if you get the bennies, its not like people know that every single time you buy stuff, only when you use that specific payment method
As a taxpayer, I’m glad you were able to do that. The poor deserve more than the bare minimum
My ex and I were on food stamps at one point so I hope that my message didn’t come across as spam on those who use them. I was trying to explain to who I thought was a non US person who was not familiar with how it works.
Oh, no, I didn’t think that at all! I was just adding my own story to the mix.
Yeah thats really what I wanted know. Cheers.
Fake news ,nothing too see
Better give the orange dotard regime an extra $600mil they don’t need nor even requested for the ballroom bunker, just to show the peasants where our true priorities lie.
luxury vehicles
What do you want to bet they’re talking about poorly maintained 15+ year old lexuses and 30+ year old bmws? Just kidding, it’s most likely entirely unfounded.
I’d go even further and say that they are classifying vehicles themselves as a luxury, not even the make or model.
Remember when Fox News got all worked up because poor people had a microwave? And a refrigerator???
In my state, if your apartment doesn’t include a fridge-freezer and cooktop-oven, it’s not considered habitable.
The good old “oh you’re poor? How come you have a phone then?”
Yeah that argument is so ridiculous.
You can buy lightly used phones on Swappa for a large discount even when we are talking about flagship phones. There are also situations where someone could be poor but have enough credit to get a phone financed with monthly payments that they can afford.
There are pre paid MVNOs in the US where you can get unlimited talk, text, and on device data, that also includes unlimited hotspot at fairly decent speeds (plus there are ways of bypassing hotspot speed caps, Tetherfi is an example open source app) for less than 30$ a month taxes and fees included. I have known people who have used their unlimited hotspot as their only internet at home.
Just because some of these people may have a high cell phone bill does not mean everyone else does.
I think it’s because a lot of people are like Mother Theresa. They’re of the belief that if you’re poor, you should suffer, because not doing so would be a moral failing. Being poor makes you a bad person.
You want more than ONE door on your car?!?!
Then you get an Isetta and they’re going to complain that you have a BMW.
🤣 exactly.
They’re trying to bring back Welfare Queens. I’m sure almost everyone’s forgotten, but this was the kind of accusation that led to Welfare being viewed so negatively and eventually being renamed entirely.
Ironically, it’s middle-class suburban homeowners who are the real welfare queens. They may not get the actual government program called “welfare,” but they get so many other kinds of subsidies for their lifestyle that the stereotypical urban renter single mom is probably subsidizing them instead of the other way around!
I think Walmart takes the cake. They purposely dont give a lot of hours or benefits so their employees end up on SNAP who then use SNAP at Walmart.
The government is essentially paying their employees wages to then be spent at Walmart.
Yep. Another Reagan lie.
This is literally just the '80s “welfare queen” lie.
We need to get rid of means testing. The largest money line for any government programs is the army of people making sure Americans need the program. People that don’t need government programs usually don’t use them. So hiring someone to make sure a wealthy person doesn’t cash in $150 worth of food stamps.
The same people who believed that in their 20s when Reagan said it are now in their late 60s and early 70s. You can see the problem.
Someone driving a hand me down 90s Lincoln worth $2500 isn’t exactly what I’d call luxurious.
Liars gonna lie.
The “fraud” they’re talking about is Black people being allowed to access food.
“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week
It should be noted that in some states (most? No idea), the value of your car and house don’t count against your application for food stamps. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that you would have to be a fucking moron to sell your home or car to eat, since after you eat you either have nowhere to sleep or no way to get to work independently. A “high value” (read: not a shitcan) car can also be more dependable than a junker, may vary by brand of course.
Anyway, anyone who has ever wanted to police food stamps is going to hell.
Plus that person could be swimming in payments but needs the reliable car or safe house to do as you mentioned.
The real welfare queens are projecting again.
The “luxury vehicle” angle is clearly a scam, but there is evidence of SNAP fraud, at least here in Oregon, it’s just being done with card skimmers stealing legitimate SNAP data and funds from the people who need it most:
"How the scam works
Scammers place an overlay device on card readers or keypads, often at smaller retailers such as dollar stores or community markets.
These devices look nearly identical to real machines but secretly collect card numbers and PINs.
Stolen card data is then used in other states to purchase high-demand items like baby formula or resold goods"
The fix for this should be simple: EBT funds should only be accessible in the state where the card was issued.
I wonder how many stores have checking for skimmers as part of their daily workflows.
EBT funds should only be accessible in the state where the card was issued.
I wouldn’t be a fan of blocking access of OR/WA folk from buying something if they cross the river, let alone all the interstate travel that happens on the East Coast.
True, but if an Oregon card is being used in New York, that’s a problem.
The fix for this should be simple: EBT funds should only be accessible in the state where the card was issued.>
Sucks for people like my mom then, who lives in a 600 person town on the border of two states, with no grocery stores or even gas stations for almost an hour north or east deepeer into “her” state, but with a Stop and Shop 11 minutes down the road in the neighbor state. But you’re right, we don’t want the poors being allowed to just roam free, ya?
Your opinion is ignorant of people’s real life situations.
Then you set it up in the account so it’s only valid in user specified states.
That is not a sollution. That’s wildly restrictive, discriminatory, and overly complicated. Card skimming is theft, not fraud, for one thing, and that’s a problem that effects any card that runs through it, not just EBT. It’s the store’s problem for not providing a safe means to conduct transactions, and the burden shouldn’t be placed on the most vulnerable populations. Cash and even debit cards don’t need permission to be used outside of some designated range.
You’re out of touch and need to practice your empathy skills.
If a user sets it up so “I only use the card in Oregon and Washington”, that should block it from, say, New York or Florida. I really isn’t rocket science.
A payment processor was compromised and my debit card info was caught in Berlin which prompted a call from my bank going “Heeeeyyy… you aren’t trying to buy a Eurorail pass in Germany, are you?”
Yeah, no. They cancelled the card and issued a new one. The use pattern was out of the ordinary. Same thing should be applied here.
Cute story.
I once told a bank i was going to spend a summer working in Alaska and not to be alarmed when my card started having transactions there. They said “okay!” Then they frozen my card after my first use and when I called them to see why (they didn’t call me) they said “suspicious activity on your card, it was used in Alaska!” Then on my return trip home, it was skimmed and used in NYC while I was on a bus in Arizona, I called the bank (again, they didn’t call me) and said hey there’s a weird charge on my card in NYC, but im in Arizona, and they said “huh weird, I guess we’ll freeze it if you want”.
Genuinely so happy your bank was so attentive to you. That’s not the normal. It is cruel and irresponsible to put restrictions on people’s food cards, especially the way the pedophile and his cronies are gutting government offices. It’s really hard to get in touch with someone from the EBT department, by design.
Say ive authorized my food card to be used in OR/WA. But what if I’m in Idaho for the weekend unexpectedly, but i need something to eat? What if I’m driving down to visit a relative in NoCal who is on a fixed income and doesnt have enough food for me and i want to pick up some milk and eggs once i get to california so i dont have to worry about keeping them cold? What if I live on the VT/MA border, so I authorize those states, but there’s something I need to do in New York, and going to a MA or VT grocery store after going all the way to NY to run an errand would be miles out of my way and I just want to go to the grocery store in NYS, but uh oh, I didn’t authorize that state and I can’t get a hold of anyone other than a robot on the phone at the ebt office and gas is five fucking dollars a gallon and I can’t afford to drive all over the tri state area, so I guess i’ll just be fucking hungry again today.
Stop trying to die on this hill. You’re suggestion is a bad idea, not because you’re a bad person (giving you thr botd, but losing faith fast) but because you lack the life experiences and have experienced privilege that clouds your judgement.
Maybe you’re a troll and I’m giving you exactly what you want, so this will be my last comment, but if you’re being genuine, please try to see things from someone else’s view. It is a bad idea to put restrictions on a food card. It’s for FOOD. The rates of theft and fraud are over represented by bad actors like the republicans.
Not a troll, just explaining how the system works with current debit cards and SHOULD work with EBT cards.
Here’s the breach that got me:
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/subway-breach-exposes-pos-vulnerabilities-a-5125
The fix is just giving them actual money.
The fix for this should be simple: EBT funds should only be accessible in the state where the card was issued.
The solution to robbing from poor people should not be robbing them of more of their benefit.
So what you’re saying is people in need are getting their benefits stolen. That’s not at all what the administration is claiming or expressing concern about.
Nope, still fraud, just not on the part of the benefit holder.
So if these machines are skimming all cards numbers/pins then surely the answer is to restrict everyone’s cards, credit, debit, everything to their own state?
Why is it your logic that only the poor people need to be restricted because other people are stealing from them? Where’s the logic in going after the victims of fraud?
Other cards already have these protections, the EBT cards do not. That’s the problem.
If they were secured the same way as credit/debit cards we wouldn’t be seeing this problem.
I should say too… EBT cards are already restricted as far as what they can be used for, it only makes sense to flag where they can be used as well.
So then protect the cards without excessive restrictions that aren’t put on other cards. Freedom of movement is a human right so to restrict someone’s essential payment method state to state seems like a breach of that.
Again, EBT cards are already restricted.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items
They just aren’t restricted in a way that would prevent stealing the funds.
They don’t think of it as “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. They think of it as “two birds one stone”
this is exactly the welfare queen thing from the 80’s. The myth is a black woman from the inner city, the reality was a white farmer bilking the system.
deadass the only people i ever met who bragged about intentionally committing fraud (hiding income and claiming dependents they didn’t actually support, in their case) to qualify for benefits were also the pasty whitest trash I’ve met
also they were just generally mean horrible people
and i’d rather a million fuckers like them get their undeserved benefits if it meant nobody who needs it ever gets denied.
ideally I would like universal benefits with no means test. that way no one can cheat and everyone who needs it gets it.
