Republicans Call Brett Favre As Expert Witness On Welfare Fraud

WASHINGTON — Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre became one of the unlikeliest expert witnesses of all time on Tuesday when he testified about welfare fraud in a House committee hearing.

The state of Mississippi accused Favre in 2022 of improperly receiving $1 million in funds from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, the federal program most closely associated with the word “welfare.”

Favre was not charged with a crime and has maintained he didn’t know he had improperly received the money, which came from grants through a nonprofit organization and which he said he repaid.

“When this started, I didn’t know what TANF was,” Favre said in an opening statement on Tuesday. (Favre also revealed for the first time that he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.)

“I have learned that nobody was or is watching how TANF funds are spent,” he added. “States have too much flexibility in how they spend this money.”

Favre’s case was a sensational illustration of how the TANF program doesn’t directly help the low-income parents it’s supposed to serve, with funds flowing instead to nonprofits that are supposed to help the poor. With Favre, the expenditures covered the cost of speeches and radio commercials.

Only 22% of program funds were actually sent to families as cash payments in 2020, according to the Center on Budget for Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, with the rest of the funds split across an array of services, such as child care and Head Start, and 10% of the total amount going to program administration. Mississippi only used 7% of TANF funds for benefits.

Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced Favre as “someone whose experience I think can help shed additional light on the need to pursue reforms” to TANF, which Republicans have long held up as a model for the rest of the federal government’s social programs.

“He saw how embezzlement and mismanagement hurt the people [that] welfare’s supposed to help,” Smith said.

Smith has championed a range of small changes to TANF that include limiting benefits to lower-income families and providing estimates of improper payments in the program. None of the proposals are likely to become law anytime soon.

During the hearing, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said states should focus more on connecting people with jobs and not giving them money.

“That’s what success should look like, not just saying we sent people money. That’s short-term,” Wenstrup said.

The TANF program’s predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, provided cash benefits directly to qualifying parents for much of the 20th century until 1996, when congressional Republicans and then-President Bill Clinton changed the program into a fixed grant and encouraged states to slash enrollment. The program now serves fewer than a million families annually, just a fraction of its eligible population.

“Today there will be a lot of faux outrage over a program that has been repeatedly exploited, with no accountability for how it got that way,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the committee’s top Democrat, said in an opening statement. “Republican authors of the original TANF law deliberately prevented real federal oversight of TANF at the request of Republican House members and governors.”

Favre, for his part, complained that officials in Mississippi used him as a scapegoat for TANF’s failures and tarnished his reputation for political gain. He also complained that the state was using TANF funds to pay its legal expenses related to his case. But he didn’t offer specific recommendations for reform.

“I’m not smart enough to figure out what needs to be done in a lot of areas of TANF, but I know the senseless use of TANF funds for things they’re not intended for has to stop,” Favre said.

Lawmakers praised Favre for coming forward with his Parkinson’s diagnosis and generally shied from asking confrontational questions about the money he received.

The 54-year-old Hall of Famer last year sued a state auditor and two media personalities for defamation. At Tuesday’s hearing, Favre said the TANF controversy had badly damaged his reputation as a former NFL star.

“I was well-received pretty much anywhere I went. That changed, understandably so,” he said. “The fact I was branded a person who stole welfare money — that’s the lowest of the low, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t wish this upon my worst enemy.”

After the hearing, Favre signed memorabilia and posed for photos with fans in the committee room.