"NY food stamp recipients are shipping welfare-funded groceries to relatives in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti." WE are a very generous country and both publicly and privately contribute an enormous amount of foreign aid each year... however, this is not what our domestic food stamp program (EBT) was designed to do. The New York Post reports: "Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found. The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city. The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans. A spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said welfare benefits are reserved for households that buy and prepare food together. She said states should intervene if people are caught shipping nonperishables abroad. {...} Workers at the Pioneer Supermarket on Parkside Avenue and the Key Food on Flatbush Avenue confirmed the practice. They said food-stamp recipients typically take home their barrels and fill them gradually over time with food bought with EBT cards. When the tubs are full, the welfare users call a shipping company to pick them up and send them to the Caribbean for about $70. The shipments take about three weeks." The article notes that in fiscal 2012, the U.S. spent $522.7 million on aid to the Carribbean... evidently that number is in actuality a whole lot more. More: nypost/p/news/national/it_on_y22owkLpsldSAjDVC9isjM
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 16:32:44 +0000
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