I never said disband the welfare benefits program, as a child I was a recipient of the program and I imagine my life would have been drastically different without it.
What I did say was you could use EBT cards at numerous fast food restaurants and you chimed in that there are specific requirements for that to happen (and that many fast food restaurants cannot process payments) to which I disagreed.
If there is an opportunity for a private business to receive government funds they will figure out a way to process payments, it is not that difficult, I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.
But you're saying you disagree even though that information was contained in a link you posted. You're saying that you disbelieve links you posted because of things you've observed, but the system that processes ebt is a unique system that is designed specifically to process EBT payment. It is called Quest. So a McDonalds can't just accept payment under the table, they'd need to have that system installed. And then, on top of that, welfare money can be tracked to the dollar. If you wanted to know where it was being spent, you could get that information via a FOIA request. In the article you posted upthread, you can see that the writer was breaking down exact dollar amounts at exact locations.
But even aside from those things, I should've emphasized earlier that it wouldn't be a big deal to me even if that was the case. I was only pointing out the factual inaccuracy. It is an arbitrary rule that you can't get hot food with an ebt card. I think even some conservative politicians have acknowledged that.
Also when you say most homeless/proverty programs are difficult to qualify for what are you basing this off of? The amount of people who’ve applied and been denied, the amount of homeless/poverty level people in relation to funds available for them or your experiences (as a social worker or as a applicant)? Undoubtedly the programs are hard to get acceptance into when you see the amount of homelessness in the states but I’m curious to the actual numbers.
I am basing this off of my experiences working with low income/homeless programs. SNAP and food pantries are programs with the lowest barriers to entry, but when it comes to government subsidized and funded programs that I considered more impactful, the requirements were much more stringent and the acceptance rates were a lot lower. Housing programs had waitlists for years, drug programs wouldn't accept clients if they didn't believe their drug problems were serious enough(counselors would coach clients on how to emphasize and exaggerate issues), some programs would only accept clients if they already had jobs, even temporary shelter (like 15-30 day) was something that most males didn't bother pursuing because it was so limited and (understandably) favored women and families. At a lot of temporary shelters, clients have to give up belongings either because they are considered unsafe or because there is a possession limit. At one of the drop-in centers I volunteered at there was a requirement to have a state issued ID just to enter, and I would estimate that at least half of the people who came to us were turned away because they didn't meet that requirement.
One person stealing 3/4 of a million dollars would indicate the system is being abused and misused. I don’t know what you would consider gross negligence and abuse for a private company but $750000 would qualify as that for almost anywhere except maybe Amazon or Walmart.
You can find fraud in any industry. Just a few posts above I mentioned how my debit card was recently skimmed. The asshole made $4300 worth of purchases before I was contacted by my bank.The amount of fraud the credit industry experiences annually is enormous and you could probably make a stronger argument that the system itself IS actually corrupt. The article you're referring to was not welfare users buying $750,000 worth of big macs, it was a guy stealing identities to steal SNAP users' benefits.
If you go into a chipotle when schools are letting out, you will see a few kids in line asking for cups so they can get water. The staff will always give it to them even though they know that the kids are just going to get soda. You can consider that fraud, but it's just the reality that some people will take advantage of the system and that they have to balance that with the level of customer service they provide everyone else.
That said I think we as a nation have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate and I think as a people we do “try” to help those in need (you’d be hard pressed to find a retail store that isn’t asking you round your change up for a donation). But since you said it I’d argue that if a nonprofit showed the same amount of fraudulent behavior as our government run programs people would be in an uproar.
That said Vinces $30 a month budget is ridiculous and so is his claim of living on $15 a month within the last decade, especially when he had so much personal success in his private businesses.
Ok, so what are the points we're actually disagreeing on? Neither of us thinks Goodrum's approach would be ideal or that the program should be disbanded, but we seem to have different views on what constitutes a "widespread fraud" and "abuse" and what that says about the system?
eta I really did start out trying to keep this short. 
