U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday that officials will begin cracking down on widespread fraud and abuse under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The news comes after a Democratic government shutdown has left some people at risk of losing their SNAP benefits.
Speaking about the program during an interview with Newsmax, Rollins said, “Here’s the most incredible news I’ve had in the last few days, that 5,000 people are dead, that was just one month. That’s close to 186,000 dead men, women and children in this country who are getting a check. Now, that’s where we’re really going to start cracking down. Half a million are getting two.”
“But here’s what’s really amazing. This is just the data from those 29 mostly red states. Can you imagine when we get the data from the blue states what we’re going to find?” she added:
“It will give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally overhaul this program, to have everyone reapply for their benefits, to make sure that everyone who is on a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps is literally vulnerable and can’t survive without it. And that’s the next step here,” Rollins continued, according to Breitbart News.
Meanwhile, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) has called on Rollins to expand her fight against abuse and fraud by illegal aliens under SNAP, Breitbart News reported on November 9.
In a letter to Rollins, Hunt wrote: “It is of the utmost importance that the American people receive this data and that we respond appropriately in a way that puts the American people first, not last. My district is grateful that your office has already uncovered massive fraud in the SNAP system, exposing the truth we already knew—American taxpayers are being taken advantage of by the current status quo.”
Rollins reviewed data from 29 states that administered the food stamp program as the Democratic government shutdown dragged on, and she found EBT cards with balances of more than $10,000, cards that had not been used in years, and cards issued to nonexistent people, Breitbart News reported on November 5.
“The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as food stamps are formally called, has been around since the Great Depression, but has grown during the Biden administration and now serves 42 million people in the United States, one-eighth of the population,” the outlet reported.