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The Department of Justice announced charges against 25 individuals on Friday who committed fraud using Puerto Rican identities in an effort to gain government benefits and in some cases even vote. 22 of the 25 charged were illegal aliens, many with records of drug dealing, violent crimes, and some previously deported. Imposters regularly use birth certificates and social security cards stolen or copied from Puerto Ricans to pose as American citizens in order to receive Medicare, evade arrest, and take advantage of welfare benefits such as EBT cards and food stamps. In a sting operation known as, “Operation Double Trouble”...

The very expensive ($70.9 billion in 2016) federal food stamp program (officially: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is an open invitation to fraud. The latest indicator comes from Jacksonville, Florida. News4Jax.com (Channel 4 in Jacksonville) reports:

Immigrants are canceling their food stamps over fears they could be deported. Food banks and hunger advocates around the country from Tuscon to Baltimore have noticed a decline in the number of eligible immigrants applying for food stamps and a rise in the number of immigrants seeking to cancel their food stamps since President Trump’s inauguration two months ago, the Washington Post reported. Advocates on behalf of these immigrants say that their fear stems from the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would notice their participation in the food stamp program and deny them U.S. citizenship or deport them.***SNIP*** Advocates...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, Widespread reports continue to pour in from all over the nation of “glitches” with the food stamp system. It is eight days into the month and large numbers of people still have not received their benefits, and in other instances it is being reported that EBT cards are simply not working correctly. So what in the world is going on here? On downdetector.com there are scores of reports of problems with the EBT system from people all over the nation. Could this simply be another example of government incompetence, or is...

Illinois and Michigan have traded places on two key metrics for measuring prosperity and opportunity, and both changes are embarrassing for the Land of Lincoln. The first major change came in October 2014, when Michigan surpassed Illinois for total factory jobs. Michigan now has 25,000 more factory jobs than Illinois even though the Wolverine State’s economy is only three-quarters the size of Illinois’. Now, new data from the Department of Human Services shows the embarrassing role reversal has come full turn. In March of this year, Illinois bumped off Michigan to become the Midwest’s No. 1 user of the Supplemental...

“Primarily you are looking at taxpayers’ dollars that provide EBT cards, that are ultimately buying drugs,” said Sheriff Deryl Loar, of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (EBT) allow individuals receiving government benefits such as food stamps to charge products to the government when they shop. The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office tells WPEC-TV that career criminal Anthony Wheeler is not the first accused drug dealer found taking payment for drugs with taxpayer-funded electronic benefit cards. …

The House passed a bill Tuesday that could make it a little harder for people to use government welfare payments to buy marijuana in states where the drug is legal. Supporters call it the “no welfare for weed” bill. The bill would prevent people from using government-issued welfare debit cards to make purchases at stores that sell marijuana. It would also prohibit people from using the cards to withdraw cash from ATMs in those stores. …

You knew it was coming.With the legalization of pot in Colorado and other states, it has been discovered that over the past few months, purchases of marijuana in pot dispensaries have been paid for with cash from welfare benefits. The purchase of marijuana is strictly a cash business so it was obvious that ATM machines should be made available inside the dispensaries for easy access to money.That’s fine except that there is no distinction between a credit/debit card and an EBT card. Taxpayers have given this money to people that are “in need of assistance”, not to people who need...

On Tuesday, Jon Stewart attempted to "slay" arguments regarding food stamp fraud on The Daily Show. In the video, Stewart spoke about the supposed hypocrisy of conservatives criticizing food stamp usage using a collection of Fox News videos. When taken at face value, the comments may actually seem quite hypocritical. However, Stewart misses the real point: some items that can be purchased with SNAP ("food stamps") completely lack nutritional value, or are "luxury" foods like lobsters, steak, and organic salmon that don't really present an economically-friendly meal choice for someone who has trouble paying for food without government assistance. Also,...

DENVER — Saying some neighborhoods have more pot shops than banks, Colorado Democrats on Wednesday rejected a proposal to ban the use of public assistance cards to obtain cash at marijuana-shop ATMs. The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted 3-2 along party lines against a GOP proposal to add marijuana shops to the list of places where recipients of public assistance can’t use their government-issued EBT cards to access cash. ~snip~ “Already we are operating an industry which is not allowed under federal law,” said Marble, one of the chief lawmakers involved with Colorado’s marijuana regulation bills. If...

BEVERLY — A Lowell man who was carrying nearly half a pound of heroin, and an EBT card that belonged to a Beverly drug user, was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to a drug trafficking charge. Campeo Armando Diaz-Carola, 45, was originally facing a 15-year minimum mandatory term, but under a recent change in the drug laws and a charge reduction by prosecutors, received the eight-year term in a plea agreement accepted by Salem Superior Court Judge David Lowy.

On 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...

Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Walmart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Walmart was so packed, “It was worse than any black Friday” that he’s ever seen. Lynd explained the cards weren’t showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and...

SPRINGFIELD — A testy Gov. Deval Patrick, speaking for the first time about a scathing audit showing $2.4 million in taxpayer money going to dead people, defended his embattled administration last night and questioned whether the abuse was that widespread. “Wait a minute. Be real careful. Be real careful,” Patrick told the Herald Truth Squad when asked if he’s downplaying the amount of fraud. “Nobody in this administration, including me, is minimizing the seriousness of this.” But then Patrick proceeded to minimize the findings.

The next welfare scandal is going to be the huge balances on some of these EBT cards. Wait until the Department of Terrorist Assistance (DTA) finally coughs up how much money is on these cards. And yes, Gov. Deval Patrick, this is another one of those “anecdotes.” Last January a radio listener from Pittsfield sent me a receipt from a local convenience store. Some loafer had run up a tab of $3.28, so he whipped out an EBT card to pay for it. After paying his three bucks, he had $7,066.58 left on the card. I kid you not. Over...

From New York to New Mexico and across the dependent plains, welfare recipients are getting sauced on the public dime. Drunk, besotted, bombed. But while politicians pay lip service to cutting government waste, fraud and abuse, they're doing very little in practice to stop the EBT party excesses. Where's the compassion for taxpayers? You see the signs everywhere: "We accept EBT." Fast-food restaurants do. Clothing retailers do. Auto repair shops, liquor stores and even sushi joints are joining the club. "EBT" stands for the federal government's electronic benefits transfer card, which is intended to provide poor people with food stamps...

The panel reviewing the EBT system took a pass on major reforms yesterday, but Republicans are promising a fight in the state Legislature in the new year to fix the abuse-ravaged system once and for all. The EBT Cashless Commission’s final report was approved yesterday and called for more education and stricter enforcement but skipped over the toughest proposals. “The recommendations in the report are weak and ineffective, especially considering one of them is already law,” said state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton), one of the members of the commission composed of legislators and state advocates. “It was a missed opportunity...

Local lawmakers are fuming over an Obama administration policy promoting welfare and EBT benefits for immigrants, with a “welcome” package and promotional website that encourage new arrivals to take advantage of the nation’s generous government largesse. “I think it’s a complete outrage that we’re encouraging people coming here to get on public assistance,” said state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton Republican who has fought for EBT reform. “We should be encouraging people to be self-sufficient. These programs are rampant with fraud and abuse.” The fight over welfare for recent immigrants is unfolding in Washington, where a group of GOP senators...

<p>MIAMI (AP)— Millions of food stamp recipients in 10 states were unable to use their debit cards for about six hours Friday after an outage at JPMorgan Chase.</p> <p>Bank spokesman Mike Fusco apologized for the inconvenience and said the technical glitch was resolved around 1 p.m. Friday, but he declined to discuss details of what exactly went wrong.</p>

A Walpole (Ma) baker — appalled that welfare abuse now seems almost as American as apple pie — is putting her whoopie pies where her mouth is in a dispute with the Braintree Farmers Market, refusing to take EBT cards for her baked treats. “I don’t think American taxpayers should be footing the bill for people’s pie purchases,” said Andrea Taber, proprietor of the Ever So Humble Pie Co. in Walpole, who peddles her wares at the Braintree market on Fridays and now finds herself in the middle of the state’s raging fight over welfare benefits. “To me it’s no...