OOPS! Republican Study Reveals Extent of Welfare Fraud in Maine: Less Than 1 Percent
by Liam O'Connor
A study by the office of the Republican Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, has revealed that his constituents spend less than 1% of their welfare payment on commodities like alcohol and cigarettes.
The
study tracked transactions made on electronic cards loaded with funds
from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program
between January 2011 to November 2013. Of the 1.8 million transactions
made a mere 3,000 were made at bars, sports bars and strip clubs.
The
study did not track what items were purchased, and conceded that some
transactions could have been withdrawals made from ATMs on these
premises.
LePage
quickly moved to defend the results of the study and claimed they
vindicated his blustering rhetoric when it comes to welfare, arguing
that the results showed a problem that was "larger than initially
thought." This claim is curious at best when you consider that his own
state Department for Health and Human Services said that the so-called
fraudulent spending represents two-tenths of one percent of all welfare
transactions.
According to thinkprogress.org, the findings seriously undermine LePage's hysterical claims about frivolous welfare spending and people who receive benefits:
[box
type="shadow"]"Nationally, those who receive public benefits such as
welfare cash assistance, food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, and
others spend a bigger portion of their budgets on basics like food,
housing, and transportation than those who aren’t enrolled in these
programs. They also spend less on eating out and entertainment. Overall,
families who rely on government programs spend less than half of what
families who don’t rely on them spend."[/box]
Governor
LePage has been at the forefront of an increasingly vicious war on
welfare being waged by the Republican Party, and in particular the
extreme-right Tea Party faction. He recently claimed that 47% of people
in his state were not working, when in fact the data shows that 65% of
his constituents are either working or actively seeking work, and the
rest are made up mainly of retirees, the disabled, students, and
stay-at-home parents.
He
called on the unemployed in his state to "get off the couch and get
yourself a job" in 2012, at a time when job opportunities were at a
premium and unemployment was high. However his most cynical move came
when he placed a five-year cap on welfare benefits. It was estimated
that 1,500 families in Maine with 2,700 children lost their welfare
assistance.
Hysterical
claims that the poor waste their welfare spending on cigarettes,
alcohol and other commodities is not new in the war on welfare. It has
long been used to distract attention from the real wasteful spending
that takes place in America: taxes that are spent on a bloated military
budget, including nuclear weapons; paying off the debt for wars that
were paid for on credit; corporate welfare and subsidies, and tax breaks
for the richest 1% of people in the country.
The question for the American public, especially its poorest and most vulnerable citizens is this: what is your breaking point?
h/t: Think Progress
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