During the government shutdown, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins has been reviewing data from 29 states administering the food stamp program. Rollins’s review has found EBT cards that have been carrying balances of more than $10,000. It found cards that haven’t been used in years. It found...
www.breitbart.com
"During the government shutdown, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has been reviewing data from 29 states administering the food stamp program. Rollins’s review has found EBT cards that have been carrying balances of more than $10,000. It found cards that haven’t been used in years. It found cards issued to people who never existed.
Twenty-nine states have complied with the data request so far, and it has already found “thousands and thousands of illegal uses of the EBT card,” Rollins told reporters. Since they began reviewing this information, “we’ve got almost 700,000 people moved off,” she said, “and we’ve arrested about 118 people.”
“I think this has brought an appropriate focus,” McClenahan says, adding that Rollins’s findings are only from the states that have complied with her request, which are mainly red states.
Democratic-run states such as New York, California, and Illinois have so far refused, filing lawsuits to avoid complying.
In 1996, he notes, President Bill Clinton signed changes that specified non-citizens are not eligible for program benefits. It was never enforced.
“People are just kept on the program for years and they keep rolling these balances up, whether they’re using the card or not. [The government] is supposed to expunge unused benefits after nine months, but if all you do is buy a stick of gum once every nine months, your balance stays on your card. Even if you are no longer on SNAP, that card is still good,” McClenahan tells Eggers.