Obama Admin: It's Our Money, Not Taxpayers

From the Washington Times: Americans spend $80 billion each year financing food stamps for the poor, but the country has no idea where or how the money is spent.
Food stamps can be spent on goods ranging from candy to steak and are accepted at retailers from gas stations that primarily sell potato chips to fried-chicken restaurants. And as the amount spent on food stamps has more than doubled in recent years, the amount of food stamps laundered into cash has increased dramatically, government statistics show.
But the government won’t say which stores are doing the most business in food stamps, and even it doesn’t know what kinds of food those taxpayer dollars buy.
Coinciding with lobbying by convenience stores, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program in conjunction with states, contends that disclosing how much each store authorized to accept benefits, known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), receives in taxpayer funds would amount to revealing trade secrets.
As a result, fraud is hard to track and the efficacy of the massive program is impossible to evaluate.
 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/24/top-secret-what-food-stamps-buy/
 It's really quite simple why the Obama administration does not want to release the information- they know that if the information comes out, they will find how much abused the food stamp program is.
When I worked at Wal-Mart and as a shopper, I have seen so many abuses.  Food stamps were being used to high end steak, shrimp, crab legs, lobster, candy, soda and all sorts of food that I and many families could not afford to eat.
Food stamps is supposed to be used to help get people through emergencies and I have no problem with that.  But to buy surf and turf on the taxpayer dime?  Umm, no, that is not an emergency.  That tells me that these people are not having a food emergency.
Then, why are convenience stores, just located a block or two from a grocery allowed to take the food stamps/EBT card?  While some of the smaller stores do have sales to get people into their stores, in general, their prices are at least 1/3 higher than the grocery stores?  Is this good use of taxpayer money?
Fraud is a big problem for food the food stamp program.  Not once have I seen a cashier ask for identification of a people using an EBT card, but I am asked to show ID for using my debit card?  Actually, I don't mind if a cashier asks for my ID because if I know that person is looking out for fraud/stolen debit cards. And a person using an EBT card should not be offended if they are asked to show an ID.  Liberals ought to be demanding that EBT people show ID to prevent fraud because if they cut down on fraud that means there is more money to help others who really need it.
So, once again the Obama administration is giving taxpayers the middle finger because after all, it's his money not the taxpayers.