The Latest Food Stamp Abuse - Just Another Taxpayer Disgrace

Many times we have covered the insane and obscene waste of taxpayer money that the Federal government and American political class allow to happen every day of every year:

• The Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security government programs lose between $150 and $200 billion a year in taxpayer wealth to waste and criminal activity.
• Late last year the government reported that just one of the Federal govenrment's unemployment program lost almost $20 billion a year to fraud and criminal activity.
• The AARP monthly magazine for March, 2012 reported that the IRS annually fails to collect over $350 billion a year in taxes that are legally due from Americans and American businesses.
• We reported on a Seattle family that had scammed over $100,000 out of the Federal government's anti-poverty programs even though the father operated a highly successful chiropractic practice, the family lived in a home worth $1.2 million, and had enjoyed multiple international vacations over the past few years.
• A February 28, 2012 Associated Press article reported that a Texas doctor has been charged with running a massive health fraud care scheme with thousands of fraudulent patients and intermediaries, allegedly offering cash, food stamps or free groceries, to bilk Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $375 million.
• A Michigan woman, and food stamp recipient, recently won a million dollar state lottery prize ($700,000 after taxes) but is still receiving food stamp benefits, according to a recent local television news report (http://mrctv.org/videos/woman-who-won-1-million-lottery-still-food-stamps)
• Fred Dweck, a surgeon in two Broward County, Florida hospitals who also ran his own health care business in Miami, recently pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud. Over a four year period, he cheated Medicare out of at least $24 million or about $6 million a year or an amazing $500,000 a month, on average.

And a Congressional hearing last week revealed the following and latest disgrace that is Washington spending:

• Food stamp recipients have traded their benefits with corrupt retailers in exchange for cash that they used to buy drugs and weapons.
• This latest abuse in the food stamp program was revealed when Phyllis Fong, the Department of Agriculture’s inspector general, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
• Her testimony included the following: "In terms of fraud, we have seen many types of trafficking in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. By giving a recipient $50 in cash for $100 in benefits, an unscrupulous retailer can make a significant profit. Recipients, of course, are then able to spend the cash however they like. In some cases, recipients have exchanged benefits for drugs, weapons, and other contraband. When trafficking occurs unchecked, families do not receive the intended nutritional assistance, and unscrupulous retailers profit at the expense of the American public.”
• This latest estimate places the number of food stamp recipients in this fiscal year at about 46.3 million, up from 30.8 million at the beginning of fiscal year 2009.
• The sale or purchase of food stamp benefits for monetary gain is punishable by disqualification from receiving future benefits, fines, and criminal prosecution.
• However, according to the AP article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, does not even have a policy to ban food stamp retailers from the program even when they have been convicted of defrauding the government.
• Fong also testified “‘Suspension and debarment’ is a legal tool that Federal agencies can use to protect programs from repeat abusers and ensure that the Government does business only with responsible parties: "If FNS (the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service) took steps to debar retailers with a proven record of dishonesty, those individuals would be prevented from abusing other Federal programs. However, in a recent audit, we determined that FNS did not debar any of the 615 wholesalers and retailers convicted in relation to 208 cases, even though a conviction is adequate grounds for debarment."
• Furthermore, it appears that the  USDA does not review the criminal background check on food stamp retailers and “therefore cannot comply with its own requirement to deny SNAP authorization to any retailers with a criminal history.”
• Even more insulting to the American taxpayer is that the food stamp program does not bother to check the Social Security number of some of its recipients, many of whom are using the numbers of dead people and invalid SSNs to get benefits.

Just when you thought that government waste could not get any worst, you come across another wasteful government program that apparently gives away taxpayer wealth willy-nilly to just about any fraudster that comes along, both retailers and individuals. How many billions of dollars year does this program waste?

This is why no American individual, rich or poor, or American business should have any taxes raised until the political class proves that they can competently handle the wealth we already give them. This is just another in a long line of embarrassments that our politicians continually impose on us.

Obama's call to raise taxes on the rich is just a political ploy, there is more than enough wealth and taxation to go around in this country if people like Obama and the rest of the political class in Washington just did their job and stopped doing their politicking.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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http://www.repealamendment/