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submitted 6 days ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

The US Department of Agriculture has spent the past week notifying people that the country is (allegedly) overrun by individuals who are fraudulently claiming SNAP benefits, while (allegedly) driving luxury vehicles.

“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week. The official USDA account made similar claims, which were then amplified by figures like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul.

Those numbers are questionable at best. For one thing, the report they come from doesn’t name the state where thousands of people are allegedly buying Ferraris while using government money to buy food. For another, that report doesn’t include any explanation of its methodology.

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[-] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 187 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I'd rather a hundred people get benefits they "don't need" than have one person go without the support they require.

Not that it's even happening, but even if it were I really wouldn't care even a little bit. And furthermore, food stamp benefits are pathetic in the US.

[-] dalekcaan@feddit.nl 47 points 5 days ago

I remember some Republican chud or another saying they'd rather have innocent people imprisoned than let a single criminal walk free. Absolutely cannot fathom that mindset. Completely ghoulish.

I mean i can imagine it, it's just patently anti-American. Benjamin Franklin is widely quoted as saying "I'd rather let 100 guilty persons go, than imprison one innocent person."

[-] grue@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

No, that was William Blackstone. Maybe Ben Franklin also quoted it, but he's not the one who was famous for it.

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[-] Draegur@lemmy.zip 21 points 5 days ago

They honestly waste more resources on gatekeeping and means testing than they would ever save, and it'd LITERALLY cost less to just provide the same baseline benefits to everyone

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 11 points 5 days ago

Yeah, why aren't we talking about all the fraud committed by billionaire oligarchs and trump and his inner circle?

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[-] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 83 points 6 days ago

This is literally just the '80s "welfare queen" lie.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

The same people who believed that in their 20s when Reagan said it are now in their late 60s and early 70s. You can see the problem.

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[-] lifeinlarkhall@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Ah of course it's the poor that are ruining your country - that makes sense 🙄

[-] architect 8 points 4 days ago

Someone tell these people to shut the fuck up already.

[-] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 30 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I know someone on SNAP benefits. She drives a 25 year old Buick Lesabre with over 200,000 miles on it . Technically it’s a “luxury car,” which she got for $800.

Their stats are bullshit, spun in such a way as to churn up resentment towards the poorest , so the wealthiest can bilk more money from the middle.

[-] tmyakal@infosec.pub 8 points 5 days ago

I drove a '98 Lasabre for most of the 2010s. Absolutely loved it: parts were ready to find, could repair it myself at home, and the dashboard had so many weird sliders and knobs that it felt like piloting a TARDIS.

Anyone enjoying that kind of luxury should be starving to death. It's just not fair for someone to have both a beautiful, faux-wood paneled dashboard and three meals per day.

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[-] brownsugga@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

Go after the real welfare queens. The Walton family, Elon Musk, the oil and gas industry. Big corporate farming. Ending subsidies for oil and gas alone would pay for Medicare for all

[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Businesses not paying workers fair wages like Walmart forcing 1.6 million by themselves to take public assistance like food support is going to effect a ton of people and be a huge draw on the system compared to any other fraud on the system.

26.8% of 41.7 million is 11 million people. How much do you want to bet they can't find 11 hundred people committing fraud against the system like employers are.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/11/14/what-the-data-says-about-food-stamps-in-the-us/

Tax payers subsidizing corporations to further exploit tax payers

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 58 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

luxury vehicles

What do you want to bet they’re talking about poorly maintained 15+ year old lexuses and 30+ year old bmws? Just kidding, it’s most likely entirely unfounded.

[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 42 points 6 days ago

I'd go even further and say that they are classifying vehicles themselves as a luxury, not even the make or model.

[-] Dojan@pawb.social 35 points 6 days ago

The good old “oh you’re poor? How come you have a phone then?”

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[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They're trying to bring back Welfare Queens. I'm sure almost everyone's forgotten, but this was the kind of accusation that led to Welfare being viewed so negatively and eventually being renamed entirely.

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[-] Folstar@lemmus.org 16 points 5 days ago

The Gang of Pedos has never let something as trivial as evidence guide their world view. Also not big fans of consent.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The Tax Evasion and Avoidance of billionaires is many times the entire budget of this kind of thing.

You could literally make up for 100% fraud in things like food stamp by making somebody like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos pay the same effective tax rate as everybody else.

Even if these claims from the far-right of widespread fraud and abuses in social security were true, they would still be like distracting people from a raging forest fire by waving a sparkler.

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[-] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 12 points 4 days ago

When I lived in a poor area I saw a ton of luxury vehicles but they were a decade older than most non-luxury cars and were beat to shit. I'd believe the numbers but I don't think they say what this idiot is implying.

Its demoralizing that this type of messaging resonates with such a large portion of Americans, honestly.

[-] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 35 points 5 days ago

Dude, it seems everything the GOP claims lacks evidence.

[-] radiofreebc@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Have you seen what the MAGAtards do when confronted by evidence? They say it's all either fake news or AI. They're a cult and cults don't require evidence to maintain their beliefs.

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[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 33 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The "fraud" they're talking about is Black people being allowed to access food.

[-] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

People experience job loss, lose their income become briefly eligible for food stamps get a job get off food stamps ALL the time during this difficult period they don't lose their homes, cars, fancy clothes or their iphones.

[-] Zamotic@lemmy.zip 23 points 5 days ago

Watch they are going to fight to increase restrictions on SNAP benefit "handouts", but a ton of rich people fraudulently took out COVID loans, actually bought cars, never paid them back, and there is legit evidence but they were never prosecuted.

The new slogan for America should be: Protect the fellow rich, beat the poor down into dust.

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[-] Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 12 points 5 days ago

There's also no knowing what folks had when the floor fell out from under them. That Escalade might have been half paid off when they lost their source of income. Conservatives've been on this same bullshit for decades.

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[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 18 points 5 days ago

I feel like "luxury vehicles" is the same buzzword as "assault weapons." A meaningless buzzword to evoke emotion.

What's a "luxury vehicle?" What's the cutoff? Are they in a nicer Honda or a Lotus? Seeing as how this country's citizens are famously one illness or ouchie away from financial ruin, did they purchase this vehicle before or after needing assistance? Are they still making payments or is it paid off?

Facts and hard criteria or GTFO with this nonsense.

It's literally just trying to goad the struggling to pull the rug from the destitute, while the rich pop their champaign and laugh. It's class warfare rhetoric to take the heat off the Epstein class, and anybody falling for it is a damned fool.

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[-] bagsy@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Look over there at the guy stealing bread for his family, no mind the BILLIONS of dollars being stolen by this admin every week. God i hate the GOP.

[-] 4am@lemmy.zip 22 points 5 days ago

It also doesn’t define “LUXURY VEHICLE”

The banged up crossover SUV that came with CarPlay and OnStar so your insurance and the government can track your every move could be considered a LUXURY because CONNECTIVITY

Guys, poor people are forced to buy the only things we’ll sell to them. How come they never try not being poor? Lazy!

[-] violetring@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

I have a 2008 Infiniti. It's a luxury vehicle that I paid $5k for and runs like it's been smoking cigarettes the past 20 years.

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[-] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

A remix of the old welfare queen lie. smh. Some guy probably used his mom's food stamps card to get fast food once and they're going to make it seem like a billion dollars in theft.

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[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 25 points 6 days ago

“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week

It should be noted that in some states (most? No idea), the value of your car and house don’t count against your application for food stamps. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that you would have to be a fucking moron to sell your home or car to eat, since after you eat you either have nowhere to sleep or no way to get to work independently. A “high value” (read: not a shitcan) car can also be more dependable than a junker, may vary by brand of course.

Anyway, anyone who has ever wanted to police food stamps is going to hell.

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[-] Malyca@lemmy.zip 20 points 5 days ago

I got a call from the food bank thanking me for donating. She said the demand is shocking now. They don't have enough. She was all "don't worry we're just calling to thank you, not to ask for more, just keeping you updated." I shudder to think how much worse it will get by the time these gouls are through. I'll keep donating while I can, I suggest everyone else do the same. Donating money goes the farthest because the banks have deals with supermarkets and stuff.

[-] leoj@piefed.social 19 points 5 days ago

I would rather 5 people abuse it than 1 person go hungry, but maybe I'm just civilized?

Either way we should attempt to curtail abuse, but with credit+debit+tax returns we could effectively combat egregious cases of abuse.

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[-] BigDiction@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago

Even if you had 14,000 SNAP recipients driving “luxury vehicles” in every state that is still less than 2% of all beneficiaries nation wide.

Food assistance keeps people productive. Even a capitalist should advocate for it.

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[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

Republicans claim widespread food stamp fraud. What's missing? ~~Evidence~~ Food stamp fraud.

I fixed the headline.

[-] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

An old friend from college is now trying to live on $1800 a month from Social Security--in Southern California. She just found out, she will get $24 a month in SNAP, and she had to wade through bureaucracy even for that.

Keep the poors poor, working shit jobs or kill them off if they can't work. That's a Christian Nation, puh-raise JEE-zuz-ah!

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[-] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

It's a fucking excuse to make fuck-you-got-mine policies.

[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 16 points 6 days ago

this is exactly the welfare queen thing from the 80's. The myth is a black woman from the inner city, the reality was a white farmer bilking the system.

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[-] AlexLost@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

Republicans claim a lot of things without proof, and the illiterate masses eat it up.

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[-] alekwithak@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago

The real welfare queens are projecting again.

[-] lobut@lemmy.ca 11 points 5 days ago

Musk is not a problem for them or the other 88 companies dodging taxes last year right.

[-] rockandsock@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago

Someone driving a hand me down 90s Lincoln worth $2500 isn't exactly what I'd call luxurious.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

"Look at them! They're driving luxury vehicles like a fancy foreign Honda civic and the urban elite bicycle"

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

And if there is widespread food stamp fraud I am willing to bet 1k that it comes from Republicans.

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[-] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

fuck republicans

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this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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