SNAP Fraud

One of the stories floating around is that about half of the states complied with DOGE requirements that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits enrollment documentation be sent to the Feds for analysis. About half of the states chose to ignore the requirement with California, New York, Illinois and Michigan being in that number.

It comes as no surprise that some people in the states that chose to submit their enrollment documentation were receiving benefits that they were not legally entitled to. Others were receiving more benefits than they were legally entitled to.

The Trump administration is pursuing the states that ignored the request.

One possible outcome is that Trump's administration prevails in court and since the basis for the benefits that were transferred from the Federal were fraudulent, and since the states-in-question did not exercise due-diligence even after pressured by the Federal government, the fraudulently obtained benefits will be "clawed-back" by the Feds. That is, future SNAP transfers from the Federal government will be reduced by the amount of the fraud over-and-above the amount reduced to bring the rolls into compliance with the law.

It will then be incumbent upon the states to claw-back the monies in dispute...or to find other money in their budget to make up the shortfall.

It is my estimation that the states are exhibiting excessive optimism. They are hoping that Trump is bluffing and that they will be able to continue to spread Federal "loot" on their favored groups. They are also (optimistically) assuming that they will not be held accountable for (now) being accessories to criminal-fraud and being required to make the Feds "whole". That is beyond what their victimology oriented mindset can conceive.

The other possibility, one that I consider unlikely, is that the states are diligently "purifying" their SNAP benefit rolls before handing them into the Feds.

We live in interesting times.