Posted on 12/13/2007 1:22:01 PM PST by sickoflibs
By Tom LoBianco - ANNAPOLIS — Maryland paid welfare benefits to about 52,000 residents who in 2006 did not provide Social Security numbers or used invalid ones, according to a state audit of the Family Investment Administration.
The report, completed by the state Office of Legislative Audits, also found the computer software used to check eligibility for the federal food-stamps program and the state cash-assistance program could not check 90 percent of the recipients. The administration paid out $488 million from July 2006 to June 2007.
"This [computer] matching is critical in detecting potential fraud or improper payments," said state auditor Tom Barnickel.
"Our main priority is to get resources and relief to those who need it," said Norris West, a spokesman for the human resources department. "We checked and made sure all the documentation was in place. And by the time we finished going through that process, we were down to about 15,000 cases left unresolved."
The legislative audit found 47,000 of the 52,000 recipients had not provided Social Security numbers. It also found about 5,000 of the 52,000 had bogus numbers or numbers that did not match birth dates.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
My tax dollars at work. :(
Because all of our government staff paid to the job are too incompetent. We will just give them big salaries, huge benefits, hire a consultant for each one to blame and then, blame the computer.
Is the honest citizen thought of as a fool? I wonder.
Clearly the answer is to supply Social Security numbers for everyone on the planet, so they can come here at their leisure and start collecting welfare benefits without any problems.
Maryland, as usual, is a trendsetter.
but according to the “Dream Act”, we’ll do background checks in 24 hours.
Morons !
Hey all you dork politicians in Maryland! ... I can’t remember my Social Security number either. GIVE ME MONEY!
Now that this is uncovered ... will legal tax paying citizens get a refund?
LOL!!!
Big fire in Everett a subburb of Boston -- all the families affective could barely speak English.
So....it take a computer to detect that someone hasn’t provided a SS#? I wonder if they filled out the Spanish version of the form? Oopps... can’t check that—it would be racial profiling.
The argument FOR illegals is that they are cheap labor and will shore up government programs like Social Security. I’ve always suspected those arguments were crap. Illegals cost way more than they put in.
52K is stated as the total number who received benefits but had missing or erroneous numbers, not the total number of recipients. Though even if 52K was the total number of people legally receiving benefits it is 52K too much.
“There is the possibility that some people were receiving benefits when they weren’t supposed to,” Mr. West said. “When that happens, we go after them, and most people return the payments.”
If I created a fake lottery ticket with the winning numbers and redeemed it, and my fraud was discovered, would I merely be asked to return the money??
I was told straight out by a very sincere young Iranian girl, who is very much intent on “becoming America” with all the values we embrace, that, yes, those in the muslim community talk and laugh all the time about what fools we are. They take every imaginable government benefit while earning huge amounts of money in cash-type small businesses. She speaks the language since she was raised in Iran, but she despises their culture and religion of utter dishonesty. I think the same applies to other recent immigrant groups.
I will donate for and add campaign in spanish to let them know how good the welfare benefits are in MA, also maryland and canada, maybe it will keep them out of the better parts of the country
The point I was making, that one tactic, is for persons to have multiple addresses and gain benefits in different areas. What is not always realized is that just untraceable references may not mean, just a one time monthly payment. Multiples of payments.
Ping for later...
ping
I see what you’re saying. What galls me is that we seem to have a government that doesn’t even want to stop this kind of thing.
And the young lady who told me this is exactly the kind of immigrant we want to have in this country. I’m very proud to know her.
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