A reasonable thing to do - in principle. In practice that many people applying at once is going to cause all kinds of problems and delays for people. No big deal to inconvenience fraudsters, but delaying for people legitimately in need isn't good. Forced reapplication 5 percent at a time would be better. Or maybe thats what they're doing?
> Bobba [DOGE engineer] had sorted people with a Social Security number by age and found more than 12 million over 120 years old still listed in the agency’s data. Bobba said he knew these people weren’t actually receiving benefits and tried to tell Musk so, to no avail, according to SSA officials. Dudek [SSA employee] watched in horror as Trump then shared the same statistics with both houses of Congress and a national television audience, claiming the numbers proved “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors.”
[1]https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-doge-social-securi...
Right? Why is anyone taking this as a good faith number, let alone a fact, given who said it and where it was said?
It’s quite clearly made up nonsense.
If it suits a certain narrative and suspicion, then anecdata is perfectly acceptable and even preferred by some people.
Sometimes I wish we could go back to just living in Dunbar -sized groups.
If a hunter came back to the tribe and people start gathering around to eat and the hunter said "A few of you in the past have taken too much meat for themselves without doing their fair share.. I suspect. Nobody is gonna eat until we figure this out."
You know what would have happened? The village would have taken that hunter and thrown them off the cliff onto the rocks, because that motherfucker was a problem and a danger to the rest of the tribe.
In the tribal societies I'm familiar with, hunter isn't a position of honor or something, it's just a job. The hunter is a tool, like the basket weaver or the primitive doctor.
The part about "their kill" is not familiar to me in the tribal way because that's the tribe's kill. The tribes food. The elder(s) would decide to ration, not the hunter.
That aside, screw the analogy. If you have 40,000,000 people on food rations and decide to withhold said food rations because you think some of them are misappropriated, that's some very stupid thinking. Only an idiot thinks like that. The only other person that thinks like that is a sociopath, one that wishes harm on said group. Either way, they're clearly a danger as a decision maker.
Agreed, of course, but realize that for the current administration the cruelty is the whole point.
I think cruelty is the method not the point. The point is to demonstrate power and get more of it.
If we're going to work out corruption, let's take everything the billionaires have and actually fix some of our systems.
For example, the 40 billion dollar bailout of the Argentine economy.
We're on the downward slope now, but it will take awhile.
The future requires investments in education, infrastructure, healthcare, and energy generation (in particular, cheap energy), and we're simply not doing it. Being lonely sucks, and the US govt has alienated long standing allies. Economically they doesn't bode well.
What would be the value of my car without the pile of tires in my garage?
Yes we should prevent starvation but the program does need some reform. Far too much of it is spent on junk food and soft drinks. Something like 23% of SNAP is spent on junk food.
Restricting SNAP purchases to be more aligned with health would very likely save lives.
Sounds reasonable in theory but has little basis in our current political reality.
As the great Charlie M used to say: "Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome"
but we can't change it because that means we are making poor people miserable
You should be restricted from buying soft drinks, chips, candy, etc. with SNAP/EBT, just like you can't buy cigarettes and alcohol with it. But nobody is willing to take on BigFood, and are content to let them prey on the poor with taxpayers footing the bill.
The second problem though is that if you restrict SNAP eligible food, you still have to provide healthy alternatives -- fresh veggies, fruit, grains, etc. -- at subsidized prices for SNAP recipients so they can actually survive on it.
It's such a shameful situation, and one that gets very little attention from either party.
By your own argument 75% of SNAP is spent on normal food, mostly by people who need it
Cut the 25% and keep the 75% that is spent on normal food. By the other comments you can see that even that seems quite unpopular as it is seen as policing food for poor people?
It seems the biggest fraud and waste here is in the administration.
Or even better we could give some more money to Argentina.
Ahem.
That is averaging across total population (including retirees and kids?)!
It makes more sense to look at the dollars per working person (taxes)
>“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we’re going to find?” she asked during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”
Forcing all SNAP recipients to reapply over such a small discrepancy (> 1% of the 1.5%) is cruel and spiteful. And the comment by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins quoted above is disrespectful and unprofessional at best. But none of this is a surprise, given this administration's past history.
[1] https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-united-states-spends-more-o...
[0] https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in...
There are much bigger wastes of money. Tax cuts for billionaires for example. Even SNAP itself is effectively welfare for billionaires - it means they don't have to pay a fair wage.
May I recommend leaving out the snark in the future - it gives the impression that you are a heartless person who wants others to suffer. Your life is short - go outside and touch the grass, it'll do you some good.
You aren't making a strong case for either assertion. The fraud is 1% of 1.5% - that was already explained to you, and you are still trying to defend this garbage comment.
1.5% fraud is awfully high for such a large program. You can call that take heartless if you want, but what better use could that fraudulently stolen money be put to? My one and only experience with food stamps is that I couldn't get more than like $50 monthly while I was unemployed and in dire need, and that was requiring lots of documentation. (Ghetto people and illegal immigrants are getting thousands these days, lol) Maybe someone like me back then might have gotten something worth my time if there was zero fraud. With the country facing bankruptcy every dollar counts, frankly.
Additionally, requiring people to reapply for food stamps is not going to actually disqualify any people who meet the acceptance criteria, but for a very small number of dumb ones. You either qualify or you don't. If you do then nothing changes. So, my take is actually both compassionate and absolutely right.
why didn't you try fraud if you think it's so easy?
It's mindboggling to see you argue that somehow the rules that made it hard for you to get social support are somehow waived for others.
The country isn't facing bankruptcy because children are getting food. The country is facing bankruptcy because billionaires are getting so much welfare in the form of tax cuts and low wages - their employees can't afford food and rent while working full time jobs to help the leeches amass even more wealth.
Because I'm not a criminal? I have too much to lose, and frankly I don't know the system. I know roughly the kinds of things that would get me paid but it's not easy for an honest person. Some of the fraud is also, no doubt, in the form of under-reporting income or not updating the records with your current household status.
>It's mindboggling to see you argue that somehow the rules that made it hard for you to get social support are somehow waived for others.
The rules apply VERY differently based on a large number of factors. Without going too far into it, I am 100% certain that being an "asylum seeker" (aka an economic migrant to those of us who know) will get you paid. I can't fake that, it's not worth it. Also, I'd have needed it 10+ years ago, not today.
>The country isn't facing bankruptcy because children are getting food. The country is facing bankruptcy because billionaires are getting so much welfare in the form of tax cuts and low wages - their employees can't afford food and rent while working full time jobs to help the leeches amass even more wealth.
The rich are getting richer but it's mostly because they know how to work the system. It's NOT because poor people are getting screwed generally, or because they deserve more money in an economic sense. Every productive industry is being outsourced or else flooded with immigrant workers, and this has gone on for decades. The rich don't HAVE enough to pay for the welfare state or higher wages for uncompetitive workers. If you want to be mad about something, be mad that our politicians allowed the country to be hollowed out.
Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.*
If (assuming correct) it is 1.5%, then it is 1.5%
Which is a tiny percentage. That's how percentages work. Adding that it is a large number out of a huge number doesn't change anything, it is still 1.5% which means not much at all.
41M is more than population of Poland, Canada, or Ukraine
So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression.
0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover...
1: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-closer-look-...