By Greg Bishop | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pushing back against the Trump administration’s insistence that states share data with the federal government about who is getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds.

Tuesday, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins told President Donald Trump they’re preparing to withhold federal taxpayer funds from states that don’t cooperate by handing over information.

“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and protect the American taxpayer,” Rollins said.

Wednesday, Pritzker said the Trump administration is trying to weaponize food.

“I reject the idea that the federal government is doing something that’s good for the country by gathering these databases because we know that is not what this is all about,” Pritzker told reporters at an unrelated event in Chicago.

Pritzker said they’re just trying to feed people.

“People should deserve privacy, right, and whether they are a SNAP recipient or not, it should not be information that gets gathered by and then disseminated by the federal government,” Pritzker said.

Rollins said rooting out fraud ensures those who are supposed to get the subsidies receive the benefit and not those who are ineligible, and they are finding fraud all throughout the system.

“We found 186,000 dead people, with dead people’s Social Security numbers being used, 500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice,” Rollins said. “We had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states.”

For all of federal fiscal year 2024, Illinois received more than $4.4 billion to facilitate payments for more than 1.9 million SNAP recipients.

Illinois’ error rate was 11.56%, most of which is overpayments.