From Saving Freak:
SNAP PROGRAM REFORM
With the budget deficit at all-time highs it seems like those of us in the frugal community should step up an lend the government some advice on how to balance the budget. That being said I frequently see people at the grocery store using an EBT or food stamps card (now called SNAP). If I am sitting in line watching someone use this form of government assistance I frequently think of how I would handle SNAP program reform.
Cutting the Cost
I have never seen someone use coupons in conjunction with their EBT card (that's right NEVER). This seems like a huge amount of waste. Right now we give the average person on food stamps $133.79 per month (
average SNAP Program per month by state). So if you have a family of four they will get $535.16 per month on average. What if, instead of giving them the full amount, we gave them half or $267.58 and then taught them how to coupon at their local grocery stores and pharmacies (which all of the couponing sites would do for free or we could write off the classes on our taxes).
The next step would be to make sure they have the coupons they need. So we should set it up where each family gets one newspaper subscription per person in the family.
I went to
discountnewspapers.com and found that I could get a Sunday and Thursday only, 3-Month subscription for $25.87 (you need the Thursday paper to get the Publix penny item). We could probably negotiate a lower rate but let’s just stick with this number to make it easy. So if we have a family of four that is $8 per week or $34.67 per month. Since you can use the computers at your local library to print any internet coupons there is no need to spend money there.
Right now there are 48.5 million people on food stamps. If we do the math it looks like this:
48,500,000 x $133.79 = $6,488,815,000
$6,488,815,000 ÷ 2 = $3,244,407,500
News Paper Subscriptions – $168,149,5000
Total - $4,925,902,500 or a savings of $1,562,912,500 per month or $18,754,950,000 per year.
Eliminate the Waste
I have read many a story of how people waste money on food stamps. They shift the money they would have been spending on food to luxury items like cable television and cell phones with data plans or the really unscrupulous people will buy other people’s groceries for them in exchange for as little as 25 cents on the dollar. So any SNAP program reform has to include reducing the amount of waste in the program.
With information able to be sent so easily and efficiently why don’t we just have all these companies that provide luxury services send information to the regulators for people that are on food stamps. You have to register your address. All we have to do is set up a database and let the cable and satellite companies know that this address cannot have service. The cell phone company requires your social security number. So sync the data with them and make sure that person has a plan that makes sense for someone on government assistance.
If you go to buy cigarettes or alcohol you have to show your ID. Most states have magnetic strips on their driver’s licenses these days. Just have the local stores do a swipe of the license that syncs with the state database and forbids a person from purchasing those items until they are off food stamps.
Basically, if you are on government assistance we are going to make sure you are putting your money toward activities that will help you get off government assistance. To encourage this we have to make it as difficult as possible to fraud the system. If you are caught defrauding the system once, you get a slap on the wrist. The second time and you’re out. We can make this happen by letting the states keep 75% of any moneys that are returned due to the elimination of waste and fraud (it came from the states anyway).
These are the two areas that I thought were obvious. I am sure that there are other areas that could be fixed but just these two areas of SNAP program reform could be a nice start to cutting the national and state budgets.
