The Ohio Auditor of State David Yost participated in a hearing of the US House Agriculture Committee on July 6th. As I wrote in a previous post, Yost presented his ‘evidence’ of ‘fraud’ from an audit his office conducted on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka Food Stamps) in Ohio. It was obvious Yost missed the real issue with the ‘fraud’ he found and he then used his appearance in DC to raise money for a future higher office campaign.
For his testimony at the House Committee on Agriculture hearing, which was titled: “Past, Present, and Future of SNAP: Understanding Error Rates and Fraud“, David Yost wrote:
Stop Scapegoating The Poor Please!
Once again a politician, setting themselves up for higher office, goes to the ‘kick a poor person’ playbook to build some conservative cred. Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, who likes to kick things conservatives like to kick – public education, for example, – is now setting his sights on the low hanging fruit of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – better known as food stamps. Yost has a funny idea of fraud that fails to match reality.
Stereotype Busted: Poor People Are Lazy Moochers
I’m sure many people have some evil thoughts about going to work, especially after what seems like a too short of a weekend. ‘Why don’t I just go on welfare so I don’t have to work. I want to lay around all day drinking and popping out kids to get more welfare. It has to be easier than my life.’ Those of us who actually have experience with public assistance knew welfare didn’t make all poor people lazy moochers looking for free stuff. Now some actual research backs us up.
My Free School Lunch Horror Story
After reading the story about Rep. Paul Ryan’s false ‘no free school lunch’ story he told at CPAC and the general feeling among conservatives that kids need to work for their free lunches, I wanted to tell my free school lunch horror story. Yes, when I was a kid I had free school lunches and it made me feel so ashamed, but not for the reason you might think.
While growing up my family was on and off public assistance. It was during the 70s and early 80s. Being on public assistance made me eligible for a free lunch at school. It usually consisted of a punch card just like the ones used by kids whose families paid for lunch in advance so unless I told someone, no one would know my card was free to me. That isn’t my horror story.
Florida Judge Finally Ends Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients
U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven ruled on Tuesday that Florida’s law that required welfare recipients to have drug tests before getting benefits violated the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure. The state failed to show that poor people are more likely to use drugs or that testing poor people should be squeezed into the limits allowed by the US Supreme Court.
The judge’s ruling pretty much followed my line of argument on this topic in a previous post: