As all of us know, there are only three safe bets in life: You’re going to die, you’re going to pay taxes, and you’re going to sit on your butt if someone pays you to do so.
But who, or what, would be slack-jaw stupid enough to pay folks not to work? Surely no business leader worth his salt would do so. Nor would any successful organization. Then again, no one ever accused our federal government of being worth its salt or even remotely successful — which is why we now find ourselves in a $38,000,000,000,000 hole. Indeed, it’s our government’s unwillingness to acknowledge and abide by this fundamental tenet of human nature — the desire of human beings to get something for nothing — that has us in this awful mess.
Part of that mess is embedded in this grim statistic: One in eight Americans is on food stamps.
Of course, we no longer say “food stamps,” at least not in polite company. That would be insensitive, even humiliating, to some of the 42 million folks currently receiving those benefits. Instead, we euphemistically call these free goodies the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. (Incidentally, the term “food stamps” dates back to FDR’s Great Depression, when destitute folks used physical stamps to buy their food. But even back then, when unemployment hit a staggering 25%, only one in five Americans was on food stamps.)
Today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP home page, “SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.”
Sure they do. Which is why you can buy “nutritious” and “essential” foods like pop and chips and cookies and candy. But, hey, no booze or smokes. That’d be, you know, unhealthy.
But on top of allowing citizens — and noncitizens! — of the Fattest Nation in the History of the World™ to continue to feed their addictions to killer carbohydrates, the SNAP program is rife with fraud. Our lawmakers don’t know precisely how much fraud, but they’ve never let such intentional abuses get in the way of a massive giveaway. I mean, we can just print more money, right? (If you’re interested, National Review’s Chris Edwards has compiled an enlightening list of the scammer’s art — from selling benefits to retailers, to reselling food, to card skimming, to phishing, to multiple applications, to — SHOCKER — theft by government workers themselves.)
This Mississippi woman embodies the problems with the various SNAP scams.
SNAP doled out some $100 billion to around 42 million Americans in fiscal year 2024, which might seem like chump change set against a $38 trillion national debt, but every little bit hurts. As the late great Senator Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
The Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress, though, have lately signaled that enough is enough. As Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Thursday, the administration will require SNAP recipients to reapply for their benefits — which shouldn’t be a terrible inconvenience for folks who are, you know, alive.
According to Rollins, “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.” Accordingly, she’s sent letters to every state requesting their SNAP data. And, not surprisingly, she adds that just 29 states, mostly red states, have responded to the request.
State-level SNAP administrators currently require participants to recertify their eligibility every six months, and those receiving benefits are expected to keep their work history and income information up to date. But what are the odds?
This move by the Trump administration follows a major overhaul of SNAP that was part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut $186 billion from the program while adding certain new work requirements.
I can’t figure out what all the fuss is about, though. I mean, socialism is just swell until you run out of other people’s money, right?
