… about social service fraud and abuse here in Rhode Island, that is. (Voodoo curses would presumably be a different authority entirely.) From Wednesday’s Boston Herald.

A Cadillac-driving OUI suspect — charged with running a Boston Globe delivery truck off Interstate 93 and onto the Leverett Connector — was carrying three EBT cards, mocked a cop “for paying for food when she gets it for free” and threatened to put a voodoo curse on him, according to a police report.

“I questioned her as to why she had other peoples (sic) EBT cards and she
 began screaming that I was a ‘dumb (expletive)’ for paying for food when she gets it for free,” trooper William Koko­cinski wrote of Vivencia
 Bellegarde, 25, of Everett, noting she had her own electronic benefits transfer card and also the cards of two other people.

“She repeatedly called me a racist and told me she was from Haiti and she was gonna ‘put voodoo on my white (expletive),’” Kokocinski wrote.

It’s good to see such heartfelt appreciation for our social programs, especially when they’re being abused.

Speaking of which, what is happening with Ken Block’s waste and fraud report, which has been in the hands of Governor Chafee for some months now? At the RIGOP meeting Thursday evening, former state rep and current RIGOP National Committeewoman Carol Mumford pointed out that the state budget has an aggregate shortfall of $500 million – yes, an average of one hundred million dollars per year – for the next five years. That’s a pretty frightening number (rendering the General Assembly’s last-minute unionization of day-care workers last session all the more bewildering from a cash-flow stance) and one that doesn’t leave room for the waste and abuse of social programs.

Yet not nearly enough seems to be done to either ensure that only those who qualify for benefits receive them or to discourage the abuse of taxpayer funded social programs once a recipient is in the system (i.e., the selling of EBT cards, for example). In March, Justin did some calculations applying commonly used percentages to determine that the amount of the abuse of social programs in Rhode Island could be as high as $184 million. If true and acted upon, that would single-handedly wipe out that huge budget shortfall that Mumford highlighted AND leave plenty left over for, say, the removal of tolls from the Sakonnet River Bridge.

It’s all in your hands, Governor. We’re counting on you. The cheaters and fraudsters, by contrast, are counting on you to let the Block report slide … or at least, to only make a show of following up.

Irreverent conclusion: Thanks to Michael Graham for playing this clip on Thursday from Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles”. Any excuse to listen to or run an excerpt from one of Brooks’ classics is welcome, not the least one triggered by the mention of voodoo.