We've all heard the stories, the tales of outright abuse of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which was once known as the food stamp program. Many of these stories come in over the transom, as it were, from unverifiable sources, but we've all heard them - a food stamp or SNAP recipient, buying an enormous cartload of steaks, lobsters, chips, pop, candy and the like, paying with a SNAP/EBT card, and leaving the store to load their haul into a new Cadillac.
Many of those stories are questionable. This one is not; I saw it for myself. It was some years ago now, when we were still living in Colorado. I had killed a big cow elk and subjected myself to the usual backbreaking work of hauling elk meat nearly three miles from the kill site to where the truck was parked. Sick of the sight of elk meat for the moment, I took the meat to a local premium meat locker that also processed wild game.
As I was waiting to pay the deposit for the processing, the woman ahead of me was just checking out with her big box loaded with probably 20-25 pounds of top sirloin, t-bones, and the like. From an expensive premium meat shop. With food stamps.
Now, I think it's safe to say most of you reading these words would agree that this shouldn't be allowed. And USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, after uncovering rampant fraud and abuse of the SNAP program, has vowed reform.
Rollins said that the program gives food benefits to illegal aliens, and others abuse the system meant to feed hungry, low-income families.
“The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census," Rollins said. "There’s a new sheriff in town. @POTUS will not tolerate waste, fraud, or abuse while hardworking Americans go hungry.”
This article goes on to list some examples of fraud and abuse:
Recipients can sell benefits, sell the things they buy with SNAP or not report income. Criminals can install fake card readers in public places such as grocery stores, gas stations, and liquor stores that copy electronic benefit transfer card data and deplete it.
In June 2024, the USDA reported that about 11.7% or about $10.5 billion in SNAP benefits paid in fiscal year 2023 were improper.
Yes, that needs to be stamped out. And it can be stamped out. But that's only the first step in what needs to be done.
Read More: SNAP Benefits Are About to Run Out. Is There an Opportunity Here?
Iowa Rep Introduces New Stand-Alone SNAP Funding Bill to Sidestep Schumer Shutdown
The problem, not just with the SNAP program but with the entire welfare-as-a-hammock system, is the mindset it engenders. We have all seen the various TikTok and X videos of people ranting about their benefits lapsing due to the government shutdown. It's surprising - or perhaps it's not - how many of these people are grossly obese. It's surprising - or perhaps it's not - how many of them are surrounded by children they can't feed except at taxpayer expense. And it's surprising - no, it's not - how many of them have a Pantagruelian sense of entitlement, this conviction that the taxpayers owe them a living.
This engenders sloth, multi-generational failure, and dependency.
Here's the thing: If the span of human history has taught us anything, anything at all about basic human nature, it is that to be mentally and physically healthy, people have to have a purpose. There is nothing more despicable, more loathsome, more wasteful than an adult with no purpose. Humans are built to work, to strive, to achieve. We are at our best, mentally and physically, when we are working; when we are setting goals and achieving them.
Our current welfare system has removed the need for that, and the result? A mouse utopia, with all of the pathologies that can engender.
This can be fixed, and the needful actions can and must be a part of Secretary Rollins' reforms. These fixes should include:
- A lifetime limit on benefits. Be it a year, two years, five years, there must be a limit. This multi-generational doom spiral of dependency has to be broken. If people exceed their limits and still have kids they can't afford to feed, they lose their kids. Harsh? Yes. Necessary? If we are to end this cycle, yes.
- Strict limits on how the benefits are administered and how they are used. A weekly draw from a local food bank would be the ideal option: Bulk rice, bulk dry beans, lean chicken or turkey. Milk and so forth, if there are small children involved. If there is no local food bank, recipients get a large, 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper, printed boldly with "GOVERNMENT FOOD VOUCHER," listing specifically what items may be purchased.
- Lifetime bans on anyone convicted of defrauding or abusing the system. Kids involved? See above.
- Work requirements. Anyone with any office skills can spend 20 hours a week doing clerical work for the state or local governments. Everyone else gets an orange vest, a trash bag, and one of those spike sticks, and is sent out to spend 20 hours a week picking up trash along the roadways.
The incentives, as they stand, are all wrong. This must change. People have to learn to strive, to achieve, to have a purpose, and if the first lesson on that is "getting off this government food program," then that's a good first goal to have.
Since Friday, when the SNAP program ran out of funds, we've seen numerous stunning examples of why this program needs a ground-up overhaul. This is how it should be done. Secretary Rollins, are you out there?
