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Friday, March 09, 2012

Welfare Recipients Traded Food Stamps for Cash to Buy Drugs and Guns

Some of the record total of 46.3 millions recipients of food stamps--a federal welfare program--have traded their benefits at a discount with corrupt retailers to get cash to buy drugs and weapons, the inspector general (IG) for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) told Congress today.

The IG testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about fraud affecting the USDA-administered food stamp program, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) component is charged with handling SNAP.

USDA IG Phyllis Fong highlighted food stamp trafficking, which refers to the sale or purchase of food stamp benefits for monetary gain, which is punishable by disqualification from receiving future benefits, fines, and criminal prosecution.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! They've just figured this out!

Anonymous said...

You think is something new, they trade them for everything, mainly drugs.

Anonymous said...

Or they do actually buy the food and then sell a $30 box of food for around $5. And when they trade them for liquor at stores they get pennies on the dollar for them.

Anonymous said...

I used to have a roomate who used to buy them from the crack whores who had kids all the time. The more desparate they were, the better the price was, often 10 cents on the dollar. I had many fat, juicy steak dinners for 5 bucks. And no I didnt feel guilty.

Anonymous said...

If no one bought them, they wouldn't be able to sell them. Then you wouldn't have to complain about it.

But, you would still complain about something.