For LePage, facts don’t matter when attacking public assistance programs

Gov. Paul LePage was the guest of Ethan Strimling’s radio show on WGAN 560AM on Saturday, and one of the topics discussed was how recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) used their electronic benefits transfer (EBT) to withdraw cash from their accounts.

TANF provides cash benefits that can be used for food, rent, utilities, gasoline, and other such things that families need to live. The EBT cards are used at ATM machines to withdraw the cash from a recipients account. TANF benefits are prohibited from being used to purchase alcohol, cigarettes, etc., although since the benefits are delivered as cash, it is nearly impossible to stop misuse from occurring.

Last week, the LePage administration, along with conservative allies, tried to use an extremely small number of questionable transactions to claim that “fraud is a real problem” in the TANF program in Maine.

Gov. LePage repeatedly tried to twist facts to support these dubious claims while talking to Strimling (podcast here). About $94 million was distributed via TANF over the last three years in Maine:

ETHAN STRIMLING: It feels like the welfare fraud, even that you’ve exposed, is such a tiny percentage of people, it’s such a small percent – two tenths of a percent in what you rolled out last week. Why are you focusing so much energy on such a small number?

Gov. PAUL LePAGE: Well, it’s like everything else, it’s the 80/20 rule. It may be a few people but it’s millions of dollars.

STRIMLING: But the stuff that you rolled out, it only showed – at least what we saw- it only showed like $300,000. It wasn’t millions and millions of dollars.

LePAGE: One ATM machine – we rolled out the tip of the iceberg, and we’re not gonna give everything out right now because there’s gonna be some major investigations going on. But let me tell you Ethan, one ATM machine cashes 1.8% of the entire – the entire – EBT budget.

STRIMLING: Okay, but that doesn’t mean that all money’s fraud, right? That just means that people have access to be able to pay their rent, go to the laundramat, whatever.

Strimling is absolutely correct here. Without even knowing where this one particular ATM is, that so many people use it is meaningless. It only means that it is conveniently located where TANF recipients are. (My guess is that it’s located in the Hannaford’s Supermarket on Forest Avenue in Portland.)

But without skipping a beat, LePage moves on to another example of “fraud”:

LePAGE: Okay. Let me give you another one: the time of the day, the most active use of EBT cards in the state of Maine, what would you think it would be? I’ll give you a four hour spread.

STRIMLING: I’d say midday.

LePAGE: How about midnight to 3:00 a.m. – is the most active, is the first three days of the load up of the cards.

STRIMLING: Well, I would be – okay, but I want to see that data.

Do to the efforts of Maine Heritage Policy Center (MHPC), it is really easy to see the data, and it shows that LePage is wrong.

Is there a spike in EBT withdrawals just after midnight on the first day of each month? Yes, but only on the first day. What’s more is that, just as Strimling guessed, EBT withdrawals beginning at around 8:00 a.m. and running until early evening of the first day of each month dwarfs the amount withdrawn just after midnight.

And a deeper look shows the amounts withdrawn using TANF EBT cards are markedly lower in the last few days of each month, as families find their benefits virtually exhausted.

Gov. LePage seems to believe that there is something sinister about all this, when in fact, after a more thorough examination of the data, not only does it make sense, but is easily predictable.