EBT card cheats in Louisiana may lose SNAP access for a year

Back on Oct. 14 and Oct. 16, I wrote about the EBT debacle in Louisiana where a bunch of SNAP enrollees stole thousands of dollars of food from local Walmarts during a social media driven hoarding event. They may not have to pay up, but they might be held accountable.

A power outage resulted in EBT cards having no limit in the area, and once a few people found out they could walk out of Walmart with $250 or more of food when they only had a balance of $10 on their EBT cards, word spread like wildfire. With tweets flying, two Walmart stores in the area were pretty much wiped out of all food in their stores. The Springhill police department chief saw one thief walk of with more than $700 in food.

A couple of days later, the state said it was not the fault of the card-holders, since Walmart should have followed procedure to limit purchases to $50 when the system was down. Walmart would just have to eat the costs. I mentioned that we knew exactly who these misguided people were, so why not hold them accountable?

We know exactly what these people purchased. We know exactly who these people are. We know they were taking advantage of a broken government system. These people should be ashamed of themselves, but the government is telling Walmart to pick up the tab.

Walmart may still have to pick up the tab, but the state is now looking at records to target recipients who defrauded the system and may cut off their benefits for the next year.

Suzy Sonnier, the secretary of state at the Department of Children and Family Services, released a statement saying: “We must protect the program for those who receive and use their benefits appropriately according to the law. We are looking at each case individually, addressing those recipients who are suspected of misrepresenting their eligibility for benefits or defrauding the system.”

At least there will be an attempt to hold these thieves accountable, but I don’t expect many to lose access to benefits for a year. Let me tell you, there is no shame among this group. If any are identified, here is my prediction.

1. They will not be shamed, they will run to the media and claim they will not be able to feed their families.
2. It wasn’t their fault, they “thought there was a change to the benefit system.”
3. They will ask “why do the children have to suffer?”
4. Government officials imposing the suspensions will be referred to as racist.

Look, I understand their is unlimited demand for free stuff – kids are willing to walk a lot of miles on Halloween for free candy – but this is different. These people knew they were screwing the system, and since it was a government system they had no problem doing it. They were taking from people and corporations who were repressing them.

Says quite a bit about society today does it not?