A Local Conservative Celebrity

It seems that we have a local conservative celebrity in Rhode Island. If you haven't already heard, Providence College junior Christine Rousselle is getting some national attention for a column she wrote for The College Conservative at PC. She's going to be appearing on The Today Show on January 9th to discuss her article.

My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform is attracting the attention as she details her time working the cash registers at her local Walmart in Scarborough, Maine. She'd writes of abuses of government entitlement programs such as

People ignoring me on their iPhones while the state paid for their food.

This one sounds similar to the mini-excitement that came about when a man in line to eat at a homeless shelter was being served by Michelle Obama and he took a picture of her while on his Blackberry Pearl.

People using TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) money to buy such necessities such as earrings, kitkat bars, beer, WWE figurines, and, my personal favorite, a slip n’ slide. TANF money does not have restrictions like food stamps on what can be bought with it.

And one of the favorites, the hot dog man:

A man who ran a hotdog stand on the pier in Portland, Maine used to come through my line. He would always discuss his hotdog stand and encourage me to “come visit him for lunch some day.” What would he buy? Hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, etc. How would he pay for it? Food stamps. Either that man really likes hotdogs, or the state is paying for his business.

I guess we can consider that one a small business government grant. It's just coming out of the left pocket instead of the right.

Probably the most surprising thing to me about her article and the reaction to it isn't so much the content of her article. I don't think it is new news. These are all things that some have seen for a long time. One other area of fraud that she didn't touch on, maybe because there's no real incentive for Walmart to engage in it is the SNAP swap. Someone on the food stamps can head into their local convenience store, hand over the equivalent of $20 to the store and get $10 in return. It's a win for the store and it's a win for the customer, assuming neither gets caught.

One way that much of this abuse could possibly be lessened is instead of giving people money for their food, give them the food itself. The problem is that we want people to have at least the essentials, so let's provide them with that. Even if we need to have deliveries to the homes themselves, bring a package of the necessities as they are needed. If the people want something else, they can go buy it with their own money. But at least they'll have the necessities of things like milk, bread, vegetables, and proteins in some form.

Before the flaming starts, I will say that while I do believe that the type of fraud and abuse described both by Rousselle and myself does happen, I truly do not believe it is widespread. I don't believe it is anything even close to a majority. I believe it is an extreme minority. However when there are millions of people on the system, even a small minority of "millions" can lead to a lot of abuse. Hopefully Rousselle's column continues to open eyes to this system and we find areas to improve these programs.