Senate Challenger Bailey Says Timilty Should End EBT Cash

Jeff Bailey, Republican candidate for State Senate in the Bristol and Norfolk District from Attleboro, criticized incumbent Senator James Timilty’s press release praising creating a Fraud Unit within the State Police for going after welfare cheats. Bailey is challenging for the seat.

Bailey strongly believes that if the Senate would pass true reforms such as ending cash withdrawal a fraud unit would not be needed.

“This is just crazy," said Bailey. "We have a huge problem with abuse of EBT cards.  We know how to easily solve it by ending cash advances.  It takes only a few adjustments administratively, but instead the incumbent wants to spend money to create a fraud unit.

“Seeing as the federal government just busted a ring abusing the cards, wouldn’t this unit be overkill.”

Bailey also believes that we cannot station police officers in every store that accepts EBT cards, but by requiring a paper trail of purchases by ending cash withdrawals the abuse of the system will be greatly curtailed. 

 “If Senator Timilty is truly interested in EBT reform he will support Senator Bob Hedlund’s amendment that ends cash advances and stops recipients from being able to use the cards out of state,” said Bailey.  “It is time for common sense not grandstanding.  We can solve this problem by stopping EBT cards from being used as ATM cards.”