This Just In ...
Kevin Fischer is a veteran broadcaster, the recipient of over 150 major journalism awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Wisconsin Associated Press, the Northwest Broadcast News Association, the Wisconsin Bar Association, and others. He has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for over three decades. A longtime aide to state Senate Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature, Kevin can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, "InterCHANGE," on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their lovely baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
E-mails, I get e-mails: "Put me in charge of food stamps"
Though I’m a frequent critic of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I know I have pointed out when they do excellent work. A perfect example is this past Sunday’s front page.
Recognizing that many of you do not receive the newspaper or even read it online, you should be aware that the MJS did a super job of pointing out the fraud within the state’s FoodShare program. FoodShare replaced the traditional food stamp program (Though I have to say the Racine Journal Times had it first).
Getting back to the Journal Sentinel, the paper writes:
“Thousands of people who receive publicly funded food assistance report losing their benefits card routinely - a sign investigators say shows many are cheating the state's $1 billion program.
Some sell their Quest cards for cash. Others trade them for drugs.
And that's not the only way the state's FoodShare program is being abused, an investigation by the Journal Sentinel has found.
Instead of using the cards as intended - as a tool to keep the poor from going hungry - participants who aren't hungry can use the cards to profit.
Unscrupulous recipients sometimes buy steaks, seafood and other expensive items with their subsidized benefits and then sell the food to friends at a discount to get cash. Other times they approach strangers in grocery stores, offering to use their Quest cards in exchange for cash - completing the deal in the parking lot and pocketing $50 for every $100 they spend in Quest funds for the strangers' groceries. In other cases, recipients fail to report all their income or that a working spouse lives in the home. Some collect money from multiple states.
Last year, nearly 2,000 FoodShare recipients reported losing their Quest card six or more times, according to new data obtained by the newspaper from the state Department of Health Services. Sixty recipients had the cards replaced 12 or more times in 2010 - meaning they averaged a lost card or more every month, the data show.”
Sounds like fraud to me. There’s more.
Good work, MJS, and sorry, liberals. Some of those poor, unfortunate souls on the dole lie and cheat.
That brings me to my inbox. Always inundated, it runneth over with claims of great blog ideas and especially those e-mails that get forwarded over and over again.
The one I’m about to share has been around a few months, and I admit, I was intrigued. It has to do with welfare, and more specifically, tightening up on welfare. I’m all for that, so I did some digging.
Did someone actually write and publish the e-mail? The answer was yes.
But I had some trouble pinpointing the actual source. Eventually, because I wouldn’t give up….BINGO!
The writers’ theme was what he’d do if put in charge of welfare. And his message has been going around for a couple of months. Problem is, it’s tough to find the actual source. But not if you keep trying.
The author wrote in a letter to the editor of a newspaper:
“Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.”
The writer: Alfred W. Evans,
The source: The Waco Tribune
You can read it all, and I highly recommend you do, right here.
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