Who needs fraud?

Given many would take increases in food stamp rolls as further evidence that the economy is in the tank, you might be surprised to learn that the Obama Administration and many state governments -- such as that of Vermont -- are actually encouraging people to join them:

People are eligible in some states even if they are not poor at all, but merely received an "informational brochure" for welfare, or a tiny amount of state money that the state deliberately gave them that they didn’t even need, in order to qualify them for food stamps[.]

Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute goes on to quote the following from a news article:

Another way that states and localities can get federal money flowing to them is by providing token amounts of assistance with home heating bills. Even a dollar of energy subsidies can make someone eligible for food stamps, or increase the benefit level for someone already on SNAP. Vermont, for example, sends $5 checks to public-housing residents, even though their subsidized rent already covers heating, to qualify them for food stamps. Liberal activists call this strategy for getting federal money "heat and eat."

The whole post is worth a read, especially regarding the non-stingy amounts of the loot passed out as food stamps, and the fact that the Obama Administration makes so much noise about cracking down on food stamp fraud while, in fact, "eligibility requirements are so lax that no fraud is even needed for many undeserving [sic] people to collect food stamps."

-- CAV