Reviving the “Welfare Queen” stereotype doesn’t make it any more true.

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.

  • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
    22·
    4 days ago

    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.”

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        3 days ago

        I feel like if someone quotes another person and then that quote becomes associated with them more thoroughly it would count as famously said. Doesn’t stop the first person from being a thing just a matter of having less fame or relevance.

        • grue@lemmy.world
          11·
          3 days ago

          In principle, maybe, but I’m fairly well-read and I have literally never heard of that quote being attributed to Ben Franklin until the earlier comment so I don’t think that’s the case here.

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            3 days ago

            Could be down to a bias of what you are exposed to, which can heavily influence what you hear. Anyways I think it was in one of his letters but I can’t quite remember cause I just woke up.

            • grue@lemmy.world
              2·
              2 days ago

              Apparently you’re right: the other reply cites the letter.

              But still, Ben Franklin is famous for a ton of stuff, including actual published works full of quotable aphorisms like Poor Richard’s Almanack (as opposed to some random private letter that was only published after-the-fact). Meanwhile, Blackstone is remembered mainly just for Commentaries on the Laws of England, of which the Blackstone’s Ratio quote is part. Can’t we let poor old Mr. Blackstone have this one thing?!

              • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                2 days ago

                Frankly as a relatively well read Californian I hadn’t heard of Mr. Blackstone. Probably a side effect of what I like to call the Atlantic Gap where American and European namely British cultures started to drift and also weirdly mirror each other up until about the 1860s or so. So the Brits can have their quote from Mr. Blackstone and those of us under the American Empire get Ben Franklin.