Need help. I'm debating a RWinger on "food stamp trafficking" on Facebook.

[CTyankee]

He says it's causing poor children to go hungry. His proof? He heard about it and "knows" two people who did it. I asked him for further proof and so far he has nothing...

All this guy wants to do is whack the safety net systems we have in this country, while all the time "defending" Social Security and Medicare (cuz he's a beneficiary of both). The irony and outright hypocrisy is stunning.

Other than that, he's a nice guy...

[muntrv]

1. Tell him you are paying for his "welfare."

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. I don't call people like that "nice guys".

[CTyankee]

3. He is, tho. He's just misinformed. Says he was a former liberal.

Not sure if he is just paranoid that grifters are stealing from the public purse or he just has poor reasoning skills, or maybe both...

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Well, he has a point.

Grifters ARE stealing from the public purse. The banksters got away with $700 bil & are setting us u for another grab.

In contrast, SNAP (food assistance) costs about 80 billion a year, providing about $133 a month for each of nearly 50 million people. There is just not a lot of room in a budget like that for fraud on the individual level.

[CTyankee]

14. We must always be aware of "waste, fraud and abuse" in any publicly financed program because

there will always be some cheaters on ANY system. This guy seems to throw up his hands and say "we can't help hungry children because their parents traffick in food stamps." Thus, while what he says may be true, he seems to want to use that argument to say "no can do."

I already told him that we can solve this. We won WW2 and put a man on the moon. We can do this. Sheesh.

[iamthebandfanman]

27. i love the social saftey net..

and think it needs to go way further..
but even I have witnessed what id call fraud before.. not exchanges of cards or trafficking ..
but questionable buying (and I don't mean food, I could care less if someone wants soda and chips) ..
for example, and this is the ONLY time I think ive been angered by the actions of a card holder, one day I was in a gas station and was behind a woman who bought her soda and chips (again, that's fine with me) but then proceeded to pull out a 20 dollar bill and buy 3 packs of cigarettes and 5 lottery tickets.
now, the cigarettes .. okay.. fine.. its an addiction..
but lottery tickets?
might as well of pulled out a lighter and burned that money.

but this notion that we should punish EVERYONE for the acts of a few is very kindergarten... this isn't recess at stake.. its peoples lives.
as you say there will always be some people who try to abuse any great idea or noble action.. that's just human beings, unfortunately. but that doesn't take away from the creditability or validity of an idea or act when so many people are helped.

ive had to use EBT (food stamp) benefits before.. saved my life as far as im concerned. dunno what I would have done with out it.

[redruddyred]

37. prolly we just have to decide that it's their own business

what they want to do with their food money.

they only get a set amt every month after all, much less than is needed for three proper meals a day.

and, to be entirely machiavellian about it, the drugs will just kill them earlier. that is, less time they spend of 65 & older ss.

again, to be entirely machiavellian.

[VanillaRhapsody]

8. not buying....

they think if even ONE person gets over then we should eliminate them altogether. As if you COULD prevent even one....those that need the services be damned. That is NOT very nice if you ask me...

Perhaps your friend has changed for the worse.

[redruddyred]

38. canvassed a guy who was really upset as he thought his son was defrauding welfare.

there are numbers you can call for that.

not saying that the civil servant you speak with will be much interested in changing such a thing, but it's a start. there are people who actually need it after all.

[VanillaRhapsody]

41. Exactly.....

but some people would rather just complain and use it to trash talk politics...

[redruddyred]

42. I don't think it's a conscious choice to be an asshole.

this guy had two jobs and prolly no time to read chomsky. rather he'd been propagandized...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Ask him what he would think about providing children with

breakfast, lunch, and dinner through schools, and sending them home with food for weekends? If you did that, you could ensure the kids aren't going hungry while reducing the food stamp benefits, so the only stamps able to be 'trafficked' would be those going to adults, no?

As an aside, I just got a SS statement. Based on my work history to date, my SS benefit supposedly would amount to $787 a month if I wait until I'm at 'full retirement age' to start it. I'm long term unemployed, I've got no 401k, no IRAs left, no other income streams. "Retirement" is going to suck.

[Prophet 451]

10. Expect something about "bootstraps"

Republicans hate the poor. Really, that fact explains everything.

[Sunlei]

19. start a tiny 'farm' in washingtondc :P

[CTyankee]

28. Interesting question to ask. I will. He will probably say the parents will just sell the food

the child brings home. His obsession seems to be with undeserving people getting a freebie at public expense. I went thru the whole rationale for reducing income inequality which he called "lofty platitudes." I explained how raising the min. wage, paid parental leave, paid sick leave, pay equity for women, etc would all help ease income inequality and he just dismisses it!

[handmade34]

5. we have all "heard" about it...

http://www.fns.usda.gov/fraud/what-snap-fraud



also I posted a video explaining our tax money that may be of interest to him
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/economy/2014/10/29/we-the-economy-your-tax-dollars-at-work.cnnmoney/

This might rank among the greatest of ironies in history: the Food Stamp Capital of the U.S. is almost entirely white and Republican.

[TexasProgresive]

7. What is meant by "food stamp trafficking"?

We don't have paper food stamps in Texas any longer-it is a debit type card called Lone Star. We had unscrupulous shop owners who would pay $.50 on the dollar for food stamps which enabled the person to buy non-food items. Many assume that they bought alcohol and cigarettes, but they may've been buying toilet paper and diapers.

My question is why do these food stamp reformers always want to punish the people redeeming food stamps for cash and never the shop owners who are likely Rs? At least around here.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. I'm thinking he likewise was talking about the old-style paper ticket type 'food stamps'.

That could be more easily traded for cash.

But honestly, given how paltry most food stamp programs are to begin with, if you wanted to trade away any great amount of your budget from them, you'd be eating nothing but ramen each day, and not a lot of that.

[NaturalHigh]

32. I read a good article on this once.

I think it was in Westwood, an indy Denver newspaper. One woman had really made quite a go of it trafficking in food stamps. Obviously, though, this was a pretty rare phenomenon, and I'm sure it's much harder to do with the modern debit cards that most food stamp programs use.

If I can ever find that article again, I'll post it. It was really interesting reading, and while I won't say I approve of what this woman was doing, I always had to give her points for ingenuity.

[Recursion]

44. There are mainly three ways that I've seen

I don't have any numbers (and suspect it's uncommon), but these are what I have personally seen from people I know in my old neighborhood

1. Storekeepers agree to ring up prohibited goods as allowable goods, generally for some form of cut.

2. People stand outside of the 7-11, offer to buy $10 worth of whatever food you're going there for in exchange for $5 cash (or whatever).

3. People buy a 12-pack of sodas at the 7-11 with EBT, put them in a cooler, and sell them on the corner for 50 cents each, yielding $6 for an $8 EBT purchase (or whatever).

Now, the more important question to ask is: what impact does EBT have on child hunger, and the answer is an unambiguous improvement.

[Prophet 451]

9. Don't bother

I have learned three things about conservatives:
1) They will lie about anything and everything whenever convenient and will call you a liar for pointing it out.
2) They are completely impervious to facts, proof or evidence.
3) They do not really care about issues in the slightest. All that concerns them is their need to look down on others which causes their utter hatred of everything and anything that their high priests say is "liberal". If Obama has done every single thing exactly the same but had an (R) after his name, they would be glowjobbing him as the anointed son of Reagan Christ.

[lunasun]

13. +1 !! exactly give it up* dont bother* spend time in useful pursuit imo

[CTyankee]

16. I just pointed out to him something I learned about the very rich...

I asked him if he thought that if he voted for rich republcans he would be rich. I told him that I used to raise big money from rich republicans in Greenwich, CT and "they have a club and don't want you in it. They don't want me either but I'm onto them."

Hope he doesn't get all mad or anything...

[liberal N proud]

11. Tell him to stop watching FOX and leave it at that

Any further discussion is futile.

[belzabubba333]

15. Other than that, he's a nice guy... oh brother

i'd tell you what to tell him but it would get hidden because we arent like that here

[packman]

17. My son has turned Repuke in his thinking

He recently visited from his home in Pennsylvania to ours in Florida. Conversation turned to Ferguson and climate warming. Cop had x-ray showing his bones above eye broken - no, that's been disproven. Climate warming is a hoax, scientist divided - 99 out of 100 says it's true, who would you believe if you were sick and 99 doctors said so, but 1 didn't? He retorts _"I didn't come to your house to be questioned!" At that point I try to think about why he is spouting off all that conspiracy shit, all those talking points, gun rhetoric, anti-feminism crap and realize--- he's lonely and needs someone to talk to. In Pennsylvania he has a support group that reinforces those opinions and that is where he is comfortable with his friends.

They have bought their clothes and feel comfortable in them. Once they crawl into that deep hole, it almost becomes impossible to see the light. Conservative thinking is root deep and your occasional pecking at that root will never get them to change.

He may have a point, there probably is food stamp trafficking just like voter ID fraud or any other kind of fraud. However, if there is it needs to be stopped just like any other fraud but you do not throw out the entire program. Sounds like typical conservative, Repuke thinking to get people worked up about very little - think Ebola, Benghazi.

[Sunlei]

18. have him report the fraud. "How Can I Report SNAP Fraud?" here is the link

http://www.fns.usda.gov/fraud/how-can-i-report-snap-fraud

[Mz Pip]

20. This is the difference between Conservatives and Liberals.

Conservatives would rather scrap and entires programs or make them prohibitively difficult to use in order to eliminate fraud.

Liberals accept the misuse of a few because the vast majority really need it.

Yes, there are people who misuse food stamps. If he knows someone who is he can do everyone the favor of reporting those individuals rather than gut the entire program.

[Rozlee]

22. Yep, it's the Cotton Mather mentality from the Salem witch trials that it's better that

99 innocents hang than that one witch escape.

[kairos12]

33. Rethugs can't go to sleep at night with the thought that someone, somewhere didn't

"earn" what they have, or even eat. Whatever "earn" means.

[wandy]

21. You say he is a former liberal. Thats telling..............

You also say, "while all the time 'defending' Social Security and Medicare (cuz he's a beneficiary of both).
That is most telling.

The GOP recruits, openly advertises for and encourage people who have the attitude.........

I got MINE and the rest of the world can go pound salt!
Don't waist your time. It would be far better to find a 'dem' and encourage them to become an active Democrat.

[CBHagman]

23. Links.

[url]http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2014/jan/20/ron-johnson/fraud-claims-20-25-cents-every-1-spent-four-govern/[/url]

[url]http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/01/food_stamp_fraud_and_errors_ar.html[/url]

The statistical report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, also shows that despite partisan rhetoric about food stamp fraud and abuse, a record low rate of food stamps are given out in error – 3.42 percent in 2012 when all errors were accounted for.

But only 2.77 percent of errors involved overpayment, including fraudulent applications for benefits that were approved and subsequently caught. The rest – 0.65 percent – occurred in cases where the government gave fewer benefits, not more, than the recipient was entitled to.

Both kinds of errors have declined steadily, USDA records show. In 2003, slightly more than 5 percent of the cases reviewed were found to have overpayments. This means that overpayment errors have dropped by 45 percent since then.

This does not mean that those applicants should not have received any benefits. The USDA says that more than 99 percent of participants were, in fact eligible -- but a small portion got the wrong amount.

[nxylas]

24. Thomas Paine said it best

Arguing with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like trying to administer medicine to the dead.

[CTyankee]

25. I wonder what changed his mind. He's really a bit OCD on "welfare cheats." He's pro-choice

and he agrees that the caps on SS should be removed and Medicare fully funded.

One thing to me is clear about RWingers politics: they are always trying to take public benefits away from people w/o harming himself or those near to them. Hence, I think, his obsession with welfare fraud. What a strange bird he is.

[bvf]

26. Keep calling him out.

Without details, "I heard about it" doesn't even pass muster as anecdotal evidence.

Call bullshit for what it is, even (especially) when it comes from an otherwise "nice" guy.

[immoderate]

29. Overdeveloped amygdala, underdeveloped anterior cingulate, classic conservative brain.

If that describes your friend it is very hard to move his attitudes. They are largely hard wired. He will tend to rely on dogma, and authority figures, and be relatively immune to reason.

That has been my experience. (I did not personally do the brain scans though. )

--imm

[CTyankee]

30. He said he was a former liberal until they got "too angry" for him.

Either he was hard wired this way all along but pretending to be something else or his brain got rewired thru some process...

[immoderate]

31. Disclaimer: I am absolutely amateur at this...

But there may be what I would call the fundy brain. They need not be religious, there are market fundamentalists who show up as Libertarians, and they spew mindless dogma, with no actual analysis, or self-awareness.

I have no business diagnosing your friend. But he may resemble some people I have contact with. YRMV.

--imm

[CTyankee]

34. I'm still confused. He's retired. Who is he trying to fool?

The guy is in his own private Idaho. I think Obama did it to him...

[azureblue]

35. ask him

if he's worried about this because some rich guy on TV or radio told him to. Then ask him why he is not worried about rich people not paying their fair share, of shipping jobs overseas, of people living on minimum wage, yet they have to have food stamps to live? Ask him why food stamp and free meal programs keep getting cut back, and it's the children who suffer most from it? And who is doing the cutting back?

and read him this:

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) explained on Tuesday that a new policy that could cut off food stamps for thousands of people in his state would be “ennobling” for poor people. The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration announced last month that beginning in 2015, it would no longer request a waiver to the federal work requirement for certain people who use the SNAP program. Up to 65,000 single Hoosiers could lose food stamp benefits unless they are working 20 hours a week or attending job training.

[CTyankee]

36. I've asked. He seems just lost in the clouds...

it's all the bad things governors at the state levels are doing. And all food stamps.

As I have said, I don't get it...this obsession with food stamps...

[quaker bill]

39. you can never make much trafficking among the poor

because they simply have no money.

You only end up poor with them. When only tiny amounts of money are given, only tiny amounts can be wasted.

There are far bigger fish to fry.

[CTyankee]

40. I like what you said there. I will use that argument. However, I know what his response

will be: no matter how small, it is terrible to traffick in food stamps and it takes food away from children directly. And another friend jumped in with the "bigger fish to fry" argument, but he got pompous about not enforcing the law. I also question him on his seeming "thing" about food stamp recipients. He got huffy and told me how he was once a Dem and a union shop steward.

I really wonder how he got so changed from what he "said" he was back when he was a Dem.

We agreed that we need a producing economy. Then we had to give up and retire for the night...

it was a long evening...

[Recursion]

43. Drug dealers and payday lenders manage to (nt)