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Republicans Claim Widespread Food Stamp Fraud. What’s Missing: Hard Evidence. (www.motherjones.com)

submitted 4 days ago by sanitation@lemmy.radio to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

SNAP (food stamps) covers almost nothing. If you have zero income, you get $69 per week (if you're even eligible). That isn't enough to feed a person. SNAP benefit scales linearly with income, reaching zero at $12k per year. How is a person making $12k per year supposed to make ends meet on their own?

This program needs to be expanded, not restricted. Or replaced with a larger Universal Basic Income.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

It would be cool if we had a program (in the future obviously) where we supplemented food stamps with farm shares. Increase demand of local farm food stuffs to increase number of small farms.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

tremendously inefficient and expensive way to make small farms provide 18% instead of 17% of our food. If you consider the actual people in need you would be actually robbing the poorest people in the nation to serve up money to people in the upper segment of middle class. Also ultimately you would actually end up seeing the rules change and subsidizing actual rich people instead.

Food stamps are effective precisely because you can simply go anywhere you normally buy food and buy food. Anything that changes that is pants on head stupid.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

I am not sure you understand what the word supplement means.

You do realize we already supplement food stamps with other programs like WIC and state specific programs right? I don't see how providing more ways to access food is "pants on head stupid"

You are also just ignoring the very real problem of food deserts. Many on food stamps would rejoice for some program that delivers them fruits and vegetables and meat.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Because every dollar spent one way is not spent another. The current food stamps program is highly effective because it just gives people a debit card that can only be spent on food. Giving people special credits that can only be spent where it will enrich certain assholes because you think enriching those assholes will be a valuable second order effect is fundamentally stupid.

If you think people don't have enough money for food give it to them directly. If you think we should subsidize farmers even more than we already do then do so.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I think a lot of people have trouble getting access to food and bringing food to them can provide a lot of nutritional value.

And yeah, I would rather the assholes who own the dollar stores not get the food stamps for stuff that barely qualifies as food.

Also, you can increase the dollars spent, just like Republicans have decreased it. I want people to thrive, not just survive.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

There is no universe where it's easier to directly get to farmers or adjacent farmers markets then it is to get to the grocery store. There are tons of grocery stores located near people whereas farmers are generally far from most people the majority of which live in urban and suburban environments far from farmers

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

86% live in urban or suburban environments whilst 14% live in rural areas.

One might suggest taxing highly processed food to subsidize less processed food and setting standards for different sized stores as far as how much floor space must be devoted to various categories of food.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

How is it more efficient to get a major subset of the community to grocery stores then to distribute the groceries to the communities that don't have access?

Its worked where tried, there is no reason we can't scale it more.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

You have no idea what you are talking about. Food stamps is about 100B per year we have never moved that much physical food for anything but a massive massive overhead. There is every reason to believe we can't scale it up without massive overhead because its a massive endeavor that existing supply chains are already handling. It would be comparatively trivial to give recipients a boost in money to buy fresh produce from existing grocery stores.

[-] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago

there should be laws against politicians lies, that should be perjury. whatever they say as public official must be true.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

That would cause the Republican Party to completely collapse.

Blatant lies are what fuel that party, all the way down to their idiotic ideology. Imagine a politician trying to defend something like Ronnie Raygun's voodoo economics under such laws.

Won't someone think of the lying liars? 😢

[-] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

But, I am thinking of them. I think they should rot in jail

[-] Soulphite@reddthat.com 24 points 4 days ago

Everyone else claiming widespread Republican fraud. What's not missing? Hard evidence.

[-] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago

the ol' Rehan welfare queen trope huh ? I guess it worked then

[-] tacoplease@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Cancun Cruz needs to be reminded of his abandonment of Texas during a disaster.

[-] Blibly@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

The Republican Party is a criminal org that should have been broken up and its members prosecuted years ago.

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Except they've always been the ones in charge

[-] dan1101@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

I'm so sick of hearing this claim. We are a very wealthy country. Look at the trillions of dollars of grift and cruelty we can withstand with things like tariffs, ICE, and Iran.

Even if there was widespread food stamp fraud, so fucking what? I don't care if 100 people get food for every truly needy person that needs it. If nothing else we can feed our people.

[-] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

But look, what if someone used food stamps to pay for luxury products like name brand Pop Tarts and not gruel-grade rice? It's not fair that the least fortunate get all the breaks!

[-] Soulphite@reddthat.com 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

We should all be against the biggest welfare queens in our countries... no, not your poor neighboring city with dilapidated buildings. No, not the lazy people on unemployment that just can't seem to make it in life... no, not the hard working man that works 3 jobs to provide for his family but somehow STILL can't seem to get by... nay... we should all be pointing our fingers at

ELON MUSK.... JEFF BEZOS... etc. etc. The biggest fucking welfare queens in our country, taking all the welfare they can get because they barely scraping by on their billions a year ROI. Poor bastards. We work hard and harder to pay in the tax pool for these fuckheads while they get all the breaks, and collect our welfare. AMERICA!!

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Ever since I learned about Lobster Boy from Faux "News", I wake up in a cold sweat every night, and it's been over a decade. Lobster? Steak!? On food stamps?

The culture of dependence must end, I say!

/me clutches pearls and calls for the country's manager...

[-] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Who is the country's manager?

[-] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Actually that's a great metaphor for Trump: the manager the nation's Karens think they deserve.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Even if there was widespread food stamp fraud, so fucking what? I don’t care if 100 people get food for every truly needy person that needs it. If nothing else we can feed our people.

Yeah, but someone, somewhere, who I don't think deserves it, might be eating lobster and steak on those food stamps!

I mean this guy was a surfer, and he got $200 a month! And seemed like he was not completely miserable! How could Obama do this to me?

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/09/19/223796325/lobster-boy-looms-large-in-food-stamp-debate

[-] dasrael@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago

You know what this means... Rugged individualism is coming for your SNAP.

[-] fira@lemmy.today 4 points 3 days ago

Also missing: Republican intelligence

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

It's next to impossible to defraud snap! The new system is a debt card that can't be used on unapproved items. The biggest fraud ever pulled on Americans is means testing for government programs. That's the most expensive aspect of any government program, is the means testing. Want to create solidarity in America? Stop dividing us between middle and lower classes with means testing. If you are an American you are entitled to rights and services you know how the constitution says.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Evidence is something the Republicans have never really required for any of the claims from Bullshit Mountain.

Evidence is for sissies and the blue-haired woke mob.

[-] Danarchy@lemmy.nz 1 points 4 days ago

Why his beard have a beard?

this post was submitted on 08 May 2026

263 points (100.0% liked)

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