Kevin Price, host of the Price of Business show, recently interviewed New York Times best selling author, Peter Schweitzer, about a new report released by the Government Accountability Institute. The Institute’s mission is to hold government agencies accountable. According to its website, the goal of the institute is to “investigate and expose crony capitalism, misuse of taxpayer monies, and other governmental corruption or malfeasance.” Schweitzer is the author of the mega best seller, Clinton Cash.
Schweitzer is an old friend of Kevin Price and the Price of Business show and it is obvious in this interesting engagement:
According to the executive summary of this important report:
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or federal food stamps, grew dramatically in the aftermath of the 2008 economic recession. Yet, despite a vastly improved economy and an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent as of August 2018, SNAP remains about 45 percent larger than its pre-recession size. Although participation and program costs have steadily declined since peak-year 2013, just under 39 million Americans—nearly one in eight—still receive taxpayer-funded SNAP assistance as of July this year. The program’s total cost was over $68 billion in 2017.1 That is roughly the combined annual budgets of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Treasury.2 As the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) scaled up the program, large amounts of fraud were inevitable. But FNS claimed annual fraud rates of just one percent, and record low “payment errors.”3 More recent data show a 1.5 percent trafficking fraud rate where SNAP benefits are exchanged for cash or non-eligible items.4 These are… (read more)
Special by The Times USA, a Price of Business Media Partner.
