Food Stamp Recipients Worried About Government Shutdown, Wingnuts Outraged

Aww, Twitchy: It's so nice to know that you guys care! Under the headline "Looming government shutdown elicits concern among food stamp recipients" yesterday, the rightwing twitter aggregator noted that according to aUSA Today explainer on the shutdown:

the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has enough money to last one more year. That means the food stamp spigot will keep flowing for a long time regardless of what happens in Washington DC tonight.

This, of course, was an excuse to present a number of tweets from greedy food stamp recipients who "have not gotten the message: "

• • I better Still get my food stamps this month #shutdown

• If this shut down go through does that mean no food stamps?

• Uhhh unnnnnn the gov better not shut down before I get my food stamps I just wasted gas earlier turning in my pay stubs

• If the governments gonna shut down, I think they should pass food stamps first. The least they could do is buy us dinner before they FUCK US

• Sooo we might not get food stamps this month if the government shut down

And of course, Twitchy also takes the opportunity to deride tweeters who "seem rather indignant about the prospect of an interruption in the government’s taxpayer-funded largesse" and to highlight the single tweet they found from "those who intend to buy food stamps on the black market: "

• Man the govt can't shut down. I still gotta find someone selling food stamps. I can't spend 350 in cash

And they follow up with their own scientifically-derived conclusion:

He needn’t worry. Illegal commerce in food stamps is one of the few sectors of the U.S. economy that is quite strong … and it is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Of course, that link goes to a collection of 13 tweets from people talking about buying or selling food stamps, which of course proves that there's a massive problem with fraud. It's a nice demonstration of confirmation bias -- this fact fits with their mindset, so SNAP is full of cheaters. Never mind that the  Atlantic  reports

“Payment error” rates -- money sent in incorrect amounts and/or to the wrong people -- have declined from near 10 percent a decade ago to 3 to 4 percent today, most of it due, again, to government error, not active fraud. The majority of food-stamp fraud appears to be generated by supermarkets “trafficking” in the food stamps. Beneficiaries intentionally ripping off the taxpayers account for perhaps 1 percent of payments. 

Still, look at all these leeches worried about feeding their families food stamps when our children can't see the PandaCam!

[ Twitchy / Atlantic ]