Posted on 03/01/2010 11:19:34 AM PST by Zakeet
Two undercover informants entered Jefferson's Liquor Palace and spotted the owner at the register. "Big baby," said one, "we gon' do this?"
The man behind the counter provided $50 in cash, two bottles of liquor, two porn DVDs and two Viagra pills — all in exchange for taking $280.85 off a food-stamp card, say federal investigators who recorded the deal.
Fraud in the government program that helps the poor has added up to nearly $100 million since 2007, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. It's a fraction of the more than $40 billion spent to feed people each year, but the crime has become a brazen way for some small stores to literally swipe cash from the U.S. Treasury, especially in the Detroit area.
There have been at least 122 fraud-related convictions of owners or employees in the five-state Midwest region since 2007, nearly double the number from 2004-06, says USDA, which oversees the welfare program. About half of those have occurred in southeastern Michigan.
Among the latest cases: A store west of downtown Detroit is accused of selling bags of the exotic chewy drug khat in exchange for food-stamp benefits. Agents in another investigation discovered that cash was wired to Somalia and other countries.
"You have a money machine on your counter. It's a crime of opportunity. We see a lot of cases," said Sheldon Light, head of the economic-crimes unit at the U.S. attorney's office in Detroit.
(Excerpt) Read more at mlive.com ...
"Soylent Green" comes to mind.
(self censored)
I was picking out canned tomatoes in the ghetto Hy Vee in Cedar Rapids and 2 different guys offered to buy food for me with their food stamp card if I’d buy beer for them. Two different people, both white, and this happened over a period of 15 minutes.
paging Desiree Rogers-xWH social secy that’s her motto
Hmmmm. Spend 280$ on food for myself and my children or get $50, two bottles of liquor, a porn DVD, and some viagra..... decisions decisions!
Around here the less sophisticated criminals take people shopping and put it on their card and then the people give them cash.
I was thinking more along the lines of tying it in with the farm subsidy program, actually, to make the two systems work well together.
I have always thought it should be rations—beans and rice. I love beans and rice. Some canned vegetables, cheese and milk. Label them prominently, give some to soup kitchens...
I dunno about the food pantry, I didn't work there. I *do* know that my Mom used to work for social services. She told me that one of their auditors got canned for going out into the parking lot and looking at some of the welfare recipient's cars....figure if they're driving a BMW, well, where there's smoke there's fire.
She'd also periodically run into her clients working at jobs that they'd "forgotten" to report. "Hey! Client X! Great to see you! So.....how long have you been working here?" :-)
They were never all that happy to see her. lol!
“I have always thought it should be rations—beans and rice. I love beans and rice. Some canned vegetables, cheese and milk. Label them prominently, give some to soup kitchens...”
This would be the way to go. But to treat people like animals with ‘kibble’ just because they are poor.... what about the disabled that cannot work for that steak? Might as well just allow the buying of pet foods...half of them are better quality than many of the processed foods for people nowadays.
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Cut the FS program and issue store vouchers. Let someone from Human Services do the shopping to make sure that only food is bought. Better yet send them to one of those food banks. I took my neighbor lady over to a FB once and they gave her things like canned beets, jack mackeral, greens, stuff like that. OK if you are starving but it sure would separate the truly starving from the moochers.
*gasp* Corruption? In Detroit? I can’t believe it. /sarc
Saves money, eliminates food-stamp fraud, and yet nobody goes hungry!
The point is to feed them, not stroke their egos. And both poor and non-poor alike would be welcome to the "kibble".
Whether you replace the word "kibble" with "rations" or the like, the point is that the system of providing cash or cash equivalent doesn't work because it only encourages a black market circumvention. If the system simply provided FOOD, and generally basic food, then there's nothing to exploit -- if the food is already available to all, then what value does it have on a black market?
And lest you think I'm being flippant, of course there would have to be exceptions for medical cases, where a specific, medically-prescribed diet can be substituted, but you don't define a system by the exceptions. I just use the "kibble" term to make a point.
BTW - sounds like you were simply following doctor's orders for the benefit of your kids ... ;-)
Children need fresh foods, not ‘kibble’ or rations. Adults could subsist on a mundane kibble diet but children are still growing and developing.
They do that all the time now. If they would require a picture ID that would stop. But of course that is too simple. I don’t understand the reasoning behind refusing to require a photo ID. It would fix the problem.
By all means Starve the Monkeys!
http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/
They have all been on multivitamins since they were weaned, and a better quality than the Flinstone’s variety :)
The point I was trying to make is that a generic kibble diet would not work for children. Some picky eaters truly are stubborn enough to starve themselves. I did not out wait the boys, after 6 days of them not eating even one bite I said enough is enough. They are healthy and that is what counts.
No I would not allow my kids to starve, not if there was ANYthing I could do about it. Once again, I was trying to make the point that this simply would not work.
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