Posts

11 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Buy With Food Stamps

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty ImagesFood stamps have become a major facet of the American system. And as the number of welfare recipients increases, so does the number of items that can be purchased with a food stamp Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card.

Government assistant programs have been on a steady recipient incline for the last 50 years. For the FY 2013, a record number of Americans were receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. In 2008, 28.2 million Americans were on food stamps, and an additional 19.4 million have been added in the last five years. Today, 47 million Americans are on food stamps.

Over the past few years, EBT has been used for some “questionable” items. Here are 11 questionable items that you can (or will soon be able to) purchase with an EBT card.

Quesarito: Taco Bell is one of many fast food restaurants that accept EBT cards. Guacamole is extra? Who cares? It’s on the taxpayer.

Bail: Convicted felons – like drug dealer Kimball Clark – have reportedly used their EBT as bail money. Clark reportedly instructed someone to go to an ATM to withdraw money from his EBT for bail. Because it’s difficult to trace ATM abuse, many speculate this problem is more widespread and not just found in isolated incidents.

Read more from this story HERE.

Food Stamp Opportunists Who Raided Walmart During EBT Glitch to be Cut Off from Program

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Natural News The ruthless hordes of food stamp recipients that went wild last month during a major glitch in the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program could end up getting cut off from the program forever, claim new reports. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal recently announced that everyone who participated in fraud in his state by raiding stores and going on out-of-control shopping sprees will soon receive letters notifying them of either a temporary or permanent loss of benefits.

As you may recall, a number of Walmart stores and other retailers throughout Louisiana were ransacked back in October when the federal EBT database suddenly went offline, registering the equivalent of unlimited balances on people’s cards. Enticed by the prospect of having no spending limits, thousands of EBT cardholders who discovered the glitch early decided to take full advantage of it, ransacking stores and filling up their carts with the most expensive food products they could find.

Many of these looters made off with the stolen goods in their carts, as checkers at some stores rang them up even though the system was down, trusting that they had enough credit on their EBT cards to cover the costs. But now that officials have had the chance to go back and review these purchases, there is clear evidence that many of the looters were simply there to steal as much as possible.

“More than 12,000 people were sent an insufficient funds notice when the problem with the EBT cards was fixed on October 12,” writes William Bigelow for Breitbart.com. “[T]hose who transgressed may lose their EBT cards for a year.”

The glitch was not limited to just Louisiana, as at least 17 states reportedly had problems with their EBT card systems during the same time. But Louisiana is among the first to actually hold its offending EBT cardholders accountable for both fraud and attempted fraud, even indicating that it plans to cut some people’s benefits off for good.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Louisiana Heist

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APOn Saturday, Louisiana’s “EBT” system malfunctioned, causing spending limits on users’ food-stamp cards temporarily to be lifted. In two counties at least, recipients noticed the error, spread the word, and set about trying to check out as much as they could fit into shopping carts. At Walmarts in the towns of Springhill and Mansfield, employees called corporate headquarters to ask what they should do. They were instructed to “keep the registers ringing.” This they did — and with a vengeance.

By the time that proper limits on the cards had been restored a couple of hours later, the shelves had been all but stripped bare. “Just about everything is gone, I’ve never seen it in that condition,” Anthony Fuller, a customer in Mansfield, told the press. Will Lyn, the chief of police in nearby Springhill, agreed, telling the Daily Mail that “it was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town. There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated.” One man even managed to spend $700.

“I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts,” Lynd reported. Those who did not manage to take advantage in time simply abandoned their hauls in the middle of the aisles.

“Contrary to rumors,” CBS proclaimed, “nobody was unruly or arrested and [the police] were mainly there to help prevent shoplifting and theft.” Given the circumstances, “preventing theft” is a rather peculiar way of describing the behavior of officers who stood and watched the incident. Whether or not local authorities had legal cause to arrest the shoppers on the spot, there really should be no doubt that widespread theft took place — or, perhaps, that widespread fraud took place. Neither that the beneficiaries evidently believe that they could get away with it, nor that the victim was the unsympathetically anonymous mass of Louisianan and federal taxpayers alters the plain fact. This was a crime.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Allen West lambasts government dependency, asks “Whatever happened to the American Dream?”

/1 Comment/in , /by

In this short but compelling video, Allen West talks about the federal farm bill and the fact that 80% of it consists of food stamp funding. He notes that the feds are encouraging even more dependency and warns that the American Dream is in real trouble.