Some individuals are abusing SNAP benefits

Gazette columnist Jennifer Hemmingsen laments that some in Washington want to ramp down spending for food stamps (“Attacks on SNAP shameful,” June 20).

Hemmingsen must have a bad memory. Or she was born last night.

Doesn't she recall the series of front page articles in the Des Moines Register two years ago revealing that 30 percent of prisoners in the Polk County Jail were receiving food stamps?

What does she make of a local Hy-Vee store manager's call a few years ago to the local Department of Human Services office? The manager reported that a few minutes earlier some food stamp recipients had been in the store and had bought organic milk, the really expensive stuff that comes in glass bottles. The manager went on to report that these people were now in the parking lot, dumping the milk and returning the empties for the bottle deposit refund, in cash, of course.

But the coup de grace was reported two months ago by noted historian and author, Warren Kozak. He was behind a woman in line to check out at a grocery. Her sole purchase was an ice cream birthday cake, a $41 cake. You guessed it, paid for with a government SNAP card.

Yes, we have a responsibility to help others to eat. But are we now supposed to sponsor their birthday parties, too?

Rich Zeis

Walker