Speaking during a Cabinet meeting at the Trump White House that occurred on Tuesday, December 2, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins explained that nearly two dozen Democrat-run states will get their federal funding cut unless they comply with anti-fraud measures. She also revealed that 800,000 fraudsters have already been booted off of SNAP.
As background, one of the major initiatives of the Trump Administration has been shutting off the fraud and waste machine that is effectively a patronage program for Democrats paid for with taxpayer dollars. As part of that crackdown, public aid programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are being investigated, as they have long been suspected of harboring a great deal of fraud.
Such is what Secretary Rollins explained during the Tuesday meeting, noting that fraud is a major problem and that the administration is trying ot work with the states to sort it out. “In February of this year, we asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud,” Rollins began.
Continuing, Rollins noted that so far, 29 states, nearly all of which are conservative-run states, have worked with the government to hand over data and root out fraud. However, 21 blue states have not. “Twenty-one states, including California, New York, and Minnesota continue to say no,” the agriculture secretary said.
Then, adding to that by levelling a threat at the blue states, Rollins explained that those states that don’t start complying and handing over the data necessary to root out fraud will see their funding shut off, saying, “So as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and they allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and protect the American taxpayer.”
That’s not all. Rollins also noted, during the cabinet meeting, that a massive amount of fraud has already been found, with nearly a million people having been removed from the SNAP program alone as the administration digs into fraud, waste, and abuse in a major way and tries to crack down on removing it.
She said, commenting on the scope and scale of the fraud, “When you have so much rampant fraud in a program that 42 million Americans participate in, now big, good piece of news that I hope is written about since you became president, about 800,000 of those 42 million have moved off of food stamps, which is hopefully the plan with better jobs, higher wages, etc. But still, when we found 186,000 dead people, or dead people social security numbers being used, 500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice. We had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states in February of this year.”
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X personality Benny Johnson, commenting on the meeting and what Rollins said during it, characterized her revelations by noting, “She highlights that the fraud is off the charts.” He added, praising what she has done and calling on yet more moves to happen, “This is an incredible start. Keep removing more. No more robbing the American taxpayer.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video