State Rep. Russell Holmes stood outside the House of Representatives chamber last week with 20 other lawmakers as they decried welfare benefit fraud and called for legislation with stricter controls on the benefits.

Four days later, in the dairy aisle of the Stop and Shop in Grove Hall, the Mattapan Democrat was approached by a man attempting to sell him his food stamps for half price.

Holmes, who was on his way back from church with his wife, said he declined the offer from the man, as did three or four other people in the store. The representative said he did not report the man, who appeared to be in his forties or fifties, because it would be his word against the man’s. But questions flashed through his mind: How could he report it? Should he take a picture? Where would he send it?

“This shows how difficult it is to report it and that it is happening,” Holmes said to the Reporter. “This is why I’m saying it’s also important to have signs up saying these things are illegal to do,” he added.

About $4 million in welfare benefits fraud, out of $415 million annually spent on the programs aimed at low-income families, was uncovered last year, Holmes said, adding that he feels that’s “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Holmes is pushing a bill with state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) that would prevent recipients from withdrawing cash from their benefit cards and would restrict any spending of the benefits to within New England. The legislation was filed last week.

But critics, including some who gathered behind reporters during the lawmakers’ press conference outside the House chamber, called the bill an attack on the poor.

A member of the Coalition for Social Justice and a former welfare recipient told the State House News Service that the “vast majority” of recipients use the benefits to support their families.

“They’re receiving certain services where they need to avoid fraud and criminal activity or they will no longer be eligible for that, and when you’re hanging on the line between survival or falling apart, you’re going to survive,” said Rachel Mulroy. “You’re not going to mess around with fraud.”

Holmes said he and his colleagues are trying to stop abusers of the system from going out and using the funds for gambling and drugs.

“We’ve been elected at a time when it’s clear constituents are saying, people are asking for more transparency in government,” he said. “This is not an attack on the poor; this is an attack on fraud in the system.”

Holmes and O’Connell called for the bill after expressing disappointment in the recommendations of a welfare benefits reform commission that both served on. They said the recommendations did not go far enough. The final report called on banning the use of the benefits at bars, spas, nail salons, and tattoo parlors.

Holmes said that some of the less contentious proposals may be rolled into the House budget that was expected to be released yesterday after the Reporter went to press.

The House budget proposal may include a request for the Patrick administration to explore ways to turn the welfare benefits program into a cashless system.

State Rep. Carlos Henriquez, a Democrat who represents Dorchester and Roxbury, said he is still researching the issue and questioning how widespread the abuses are. People who use the welfare benefits system “shouldn’t be painted with one brush,” he said. But, he added, calling for targeting of abusers, “as a taxpayer, I don’t want a person to use tax dollars in a strip club.”

Material from State House News Service was used in this report.