Republicans Name Brett Favre As Professional Witness On Welfare Fraud

WASHINGTON — Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre turned one of many unlikeliest skilled witnesses of all time on Tuesday when he testified about welfare fraud in a Home committee listening to.

The state of Mississippi accused Favre in 2022 of improperly receiving $1 million in funds from Short-term Help for Needy Households, or TANF, the federal program most carefully related to the phrase “welfare.”

Favre was not charged with a criminal offense and has maintained he didn’t know he had improperly acquired the cash, which got here from grants via a nonprofit group and which he stated he repaid.

“When this began, I didn’t know what TANF was,” Favre stated in a gap assertion on Tuesday. (Favre additionally revealed for the primary time that he’s been identified with Parkinson’s.)

“I’ve discovered that no one was or is watching how TANF funds are spent,” he added. “States have an excessive amount of flexibility in how they spend this cash.”

Favre’s case was a sensational illustration of how the TANF program doesn’t straight assist the low-income mother and father it’s purported to serve, with funds flowing as an alternative to nonprofits which might be supposed to assist the poor. With Favre, the expenditures lined the price of speeches and radio commercials.

Solely 22% of program funds have been truly despatched to households as money funds in 2020, based on the Heart on Funds for Coverage Priorities, a liberal assume tank, with the remainder of the funds cut up throughout an array of companies, equivalent to youngster care and Head Begin, and 10% of the full quantity going to program administration. Mississippi solely used 7% of TANF funds for advantages.

Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chair of the Home Methods and Means Committee, launched Favre as “somebody whose expertise I feel may also help shed further gentle on the necessity to pursue reforms” to TANF, which Republicans have lengthy held up as a mannequin for the remainder of the federal authorities’s social packages.

“He noticed how embezzlement and mismanagement damage the individuals [that] welfare’s supposed to assist,” Smith stated.

Smith has championed a variety of small adjustments to TANF that embody limiting advantages to lower-income households and offering estimates of improper funds in this system. Not one of the proposals are more likely to grow to be legislation anytime quickly.

Through the listening to, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) stated states ought to focus extra on connecting individuals with jobs and never giving them cash.

“That’s what success ought to appear like, not simply saying we despatched individuals cash. That’s short-term,” Wenstrup stated.

The TANF program’s predecessor, Assist to Households with Dependent Youngsters, supplied money advantages on to qualifying mother and father for a lot of the twentieth century till 1996, when congressional Republicans and then-President Invoice Clinton modified this system into a hard and fast grant and inspired states to slash enrollment. This system now serves fewer than one million households yearly, only a fraction of its eligible inhabitants.

“Immediately there can be a variety of fake outrage over a program that has been repeatedly exploited, with no accountability for the way it obtained that manner,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the committee’s prime Democrat, stated in a gap assertion. “Republican authors of the unique TANF legislation intentionally prevented actual federal oversight of TANF on the request of Republican Home members and governors.”

Favre, for his half, complained that officers in Mississippi used him as a scapegoat for TANF’s failures and tarnished his popularity for political acquire. He additionally complained that the state was utilizing TANF funds to pay its authorized bills associated to his case. However he didn’t provide particular suggestions for reform.

“I’m not good sufficient to determine what must be performed in a variety of areas of TANF, however I do know the mindless use of TANF funds for issues they’re not meant for has to cease,” Favre stated.

The Mississippi Division of Human Providers, which oversees TANF within the state, declined to touch upon Favre’s competition that the state is utilizing TANF funds to sue him, citing a gag order from the decide overseeing the case.

Lawmakers praised Favre for coming ahead together with his Parkinson’s analysis and usually shied from asking confrontational questions concerning the cash he acquired.

The 54-year-old Corridor of Famer final yr sued a state auditor and two media personalities for defamation. At Tuesday’s listening to, Favre stated the TANF controversy had badly broken his popularity as a former NFL star.

“I used to be well-received just about wherever I went. That modified, understandably so,” he stated. “The very fact I used to be branded an individual who stole welfare cash — that’s the bottom of the low, and it couldn’t be farther from the reality. I don’t want this upon my worst enemy.”

After the listening to, Favre signed memorabilia and posed for pictures with followers within the committee room.