Wal-Marts cleaned out by food stamps glitch will be forced to foot the bill

by Austin Petersen

Food stamp recipients cleaned out the food sections at Louisiana Wal-Marts when a glitch in the system gave them no limits on spending. The Louisiana Department of Children and Family services said that the stores will have to foot the bill because it’s the store’s responsibility to take action, including calling a number to verify card limits.

Wal-Mart employees knew something was wrong, but were advised by the corporate office to allow shoppers to make their purchases. Some stores decided to close until the problem was fixed.

“It was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town. There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated,” Springhill Police Chief Will Lyn said. “I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts. One person hauled away more than $700 worth of groceries, the chief said.

Fortunately there may be some recourse. The state of Louisiana has GPS based software to track welfare fraud. The state can track who bought what and how much was “spent”. But Wal-Mart is deciding whether or not to engage in prosecuting the perpetrators, or simply eating the loss.

KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather

Louisiana wasn’t the only state suffering from food stamp glitches. The state of California’s system had a major outage of their EBT cards as well last week. Food stamp recipients were unable to get their benefits on Saturday, and distressed shoppers began calling news agencies to complain.
Some thought that it was due to the government shutdown, but it was only a temporary glitch. Citizens were threatening to go “Rodney King” if their welfare wasn’t restored.

Austin Petersen is a homegrown Missourian with a lifelong passion for liberty. He grew up on a horse farm in Peculiar, Missouri and went on to attend Missouri State University, graduating with a degree in the Fine Arts. After developing a career in media in both New York City and Washington, D.C., he returned to Kansas City, MO, the city he now calls home. In 2016, Petersen appeared on the national stage as a candidate for president of the United States. He took second place in the crowded Libertarian primary behind Governor Gary Johnson and ahead of cyber security maverick John McAfee. During his campaign, Petersen earned many high-profile conservative endorsements, including Mary Matalin, Erick Erickson and Leon Wolf of RedState.com. Petersen also brings decades of professional experience in a wide variety of fields, from content production and media to business and political activism. He is the owner and chief executive of Stonegait LLC, a consulting firm specializing in photo and video services. He was also the director of production at FreedomWorks and an associate producer for Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show “Freedom Watch” on the Fox Business Network. Additionally, Petersen has a national following as a commentator and professional pundit. He is the founder of The Libertarian Republic, a powerful online news source for the public that receives an average of 1 million unique visits monthly and whose podcast, The Freedom Report, receives an average of one million monthly downloads. He is also a frequent contributor on television, appearing on Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC and on dozens of local radio shows.