I can’t stomach the idea of a big Thanksgiving dinner in just 15 days, with all its delicious traditional foods, when I know there are Bandera County families living in fear they might go hungry because their SNAP benefits could be delayed for weeks if the federal government appeals a judge’s ruling it has to fund SNAP for all of November.
Almost 2,000 people in Bandera county are on SNAP - the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program – also known as food stamps. State wide, 3.5 million Texans – including 1.7 million children are on SNAP. It’s a welfare program that feeds almost 42 million people nationwide.
Welfare’s a cuss word in Texas. Yeah, we’re glad to help hungry people. But our “getoff- your-butt-and-take-care-ofyourself “attitude - rooted in our rough, tumble days on the Western Frontier when Texas settlers had no one to rely on but themselves - makes us suspicious.
We believe Texas’ tax dollars, out of our own pockets, are paying for a lot of the people on SNAP who are lying to get its benefits. It’s true some Texas SNAP recipients commit fraud. They sell their food stamp balances “to a small store or food truck in exchange for cash.”
These retailers use the food stamps to stock their own shelves. Welfare fraud and abuse is estimated to be 7.3% of all federal welfare payments…” according to the federal government.
It has ways to root our offenders. And it has. New research from the USDA Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service reports fraud is being successfully monitored: “Over 98%of those receiving SNAP benefits are eligible and payment accuracy was 95.64% - an historic high.”
So, Texans, hold on to your hats. New research shows SNAP benefits are being stolen big time by state employees, not the average SNAP holder on welfare, according to the Texas Tribune in January.
It’s state employees who are “improperly” accessing food stamp accounts and stealing money from the accounts of thousands of Texans receiving Medicaid, food stamps and other public assistance.
One employee changed the PIN (personal identification number) on 391 food stamp cards and then used the benefits for illegal purchases that resulted “in a loss of $190,518” and another one changed the PIN on 211 food stamp cards, “causing a loss of $81,638.”
Still another state employee who changed PIN on SNAP cards was selling them “for half their worth in cash. “The Tribune report also found a state employee had stolen “$270,000 from some 500 food stamp accounts.”
According to the Tribune, Texas state employees have caused the “largest data breach” in the history of the “gargantuan $93.4 billion” Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the state organization that oversees welfare payments in Texas.
So, Buddy, you’re right. There’s fraud in Texas’ welfare programs. But the villains are not as likely the single mom on SNAP with a low paying job trying to feed her kids. Or, that old man down the street on SNAP with a heart condition who can only get around in a wheel chair.
Jodie Sinclair is an award-winning writer who holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and resides in Bandera.
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