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If the majority of people are acting responsibly within the program does abuse warrant changing policies for everyone else, ie optimizing around the frauds, or

If the majority of people are acting responsibly within the program does abuse warrant changing policies for everyone else, ie optimizing around the frauds, or should abuse be handled separately? When GOG.com optimized around the frauds they came up with a refund policy for their ethicals that's driven by preventing the frauds, now their real customers wanting refunds must work within a hostile framework designed to deny their refund because it assumes they're an adversary.

pnw_hazor 8y ago
GOG is not funded by money taken from others under the threat of violence. Any corruption or waste in government weakens people overall faith in government.
- benologist 8y ago
  Recipients of foodstamps aren't government employees and their fraud is individuals committing crimes, it's not government corruption. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-facts-about-food-stamp-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-f... The takeaway is that food stamp fraud ballooned during the four years through 2016 but that it still represents a tiny percentage of the program. A corrupt solution would be punishing the 99.1% of ethical recipients through more bureaucracy and restrictions for what the 0.9% did. That 0.9% should drive 100% of their fraud policies separately without impeding the overwhelmingly legitimate aid distribution. When compared with those total figures, the fraud identified in 2016 amounted to a mere 0.9% of the total. That was up from 0.5% in 2012.
zdragnar 8y ago
This is all rather off-topic from what I was originally replying to (a purely hypothetical means of subsidizing a hypothetical tax), but what do you imagine could be done to change the food stamp policies? The scam was simple enough- he'd buy $100 of groceries for me, and I'd hand him $80 in cash. The one guy was practically taking food out of his kid's mouth (almost literally, in fact) to try to get that cash. Maybe it was a legit need, maybe it was for crack (fairly popular in that area of town). Either way, if he found someone to do it, he and his family would continue living off of the cheapest foods and charity, while he'd have some unreported money. Food stamps themselves are already a compromise; the reason we have them rather than handing out cold hard cash (like he wanted) was because we wanted some assurance that it would go towards a legitimate need, rather than fueling an addiction or luxury goods. Short of getting family members to turn fraudsters in or having grocery store employees act as police informants, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to improve the system at all, without even considering the burden of new policies on good actors.
- benologist 8y ago
  I think the solution is to treat their pursuit of cash, as it pertains to the food stamp program, as just a red herring, a distraction. Some food stamp funding probably ends up in exploitative mobile game IAPs, unhealthy food etc, can't police it without massively impeding everyone's privacy and independence but 0.9% fraud means the program's overwhelmingly working as intended so why bother? If something is to be done to help the addicts, the ill, the obese etc so they spend food stamp funding more effectively it should address their addictions and illnesses and problems. Those are health and education and social services issues. Address that and you could actually start asking why there needs to be restrictions at all on what people can buy with food stamps... they're supposed to be help people below poverty live at normal standards, which includes spending money irresponsibly or at their own discretion! People on that program can't buy necessities like toilet paper, laundry detergent, soap, diapers, tampons, deodorant, lip balm, I think that is a bigger problem than 0.9% fund misuse especially when such conditions might contribute to the 'misuse'. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-kerr/10-things-you-cant-buy-with-food-stamps_b_5079780.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-kerr/10-things-you-cant-b...

pnw_hazor 8y ago

GOG is not funded by money taken from others under the threat of violence. Any corruption or waste in government weakens people overall faith in government.

benologist 8y ago
Recipients of foodstamps aren't government employees and their fraud is individuals committing crimes, it's not government corruption. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-facts-about-food-stamp-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-f... The takeaway is that food stamp fraud ballooned during the four years through 2016 but that it still represents a tiny percentage of the program. A corrupt solution would be punishing the 99.1% of ethical recipients through more bureaucracy and restrictions for what the 0.9% did. That 0.9% should drive 100% of their fraud policies separately without impeding the overwhelmingly legitimate aid distribution. When compared with those total figures, the fraud identified in 2016 amounted to a mere 0.9% of the total. That was up from 0.5% in 2012.

zdragnar 8y ago

This is all rather off-topic from what I was originally replying to (a purely hypothetical means of subsidizing a hypothetical tax), but what do you imagine could be done to change the food stamp policies? The scam was simple enough- he'd buy $100 of groceries for me, and I'd hand him $80 in cash. The one guy was practically taking food out of his kid's mouth (almost literally, in fact) to try to get that cash. Maybe it was a legit need, maybe it was for crack (fairly popular in that area of town). Either way, if he found someone to do it, he and his family would continue living off of the cheapest foods and charity, while he'd have some unreported money. Food stamps themselves are already a compromise; the reason we have them rather than handing out cold hard cash (like he wanted) was because we wanted some assurance that it would go towards a legitimate need, rather than fueling an addiction or luxury goods. Short of getting family members to turn fraudsters in or having grocery store employees act as police informants, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to improve the system at all, without even considering the burden of new policies on good actors.

benologist 8y ago
I think the solution is to treat their pursuit of cash, as it pertains to the food stamp program, as just a red herring, a distraction. Some food stamp funding probably ends up in exploitative mobile game IAPs, unhealthy food etc, can't police it without massively impeding everyone's privacy and independence but 0.9% fraud means the program's overwhelmingly working as intended so why bother? If something is to be done to help the addicts, the ill, the obese etc so they spend food stamp funding more effectively it should address their addictions and illnesses and problems. Those are health and education and social services issues. Address that and you could actually start asking why there needs to be restrictions at all on what people can buy with food stamps... they're supposed to be help people below poverty live at normal standards, which includes spending money irresponsibly or at their own discretion! People on that program can't buy necessities like toilet paper, laundry detergent, soap, diapers, tampons, deodorant, lip balm, I think that is a bigger problem than 0.9% fund misuse especially when such conditions might contribute to the 'misuse'. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-kerr/10-things-you-cant-buy-with-food-stamps_b_5079780.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-kerr/10-things-you-cant-b...