By giving it all to the banks in service fees:
Kansas welfare recipients will be unable to get more than $25 per day in benefits under a new law sent this week to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk by the state legislature.
The bill also prohibits welfare recipients from spending their benefits at certain types of businesses, including liquor stores, fortune tellers, swimming pools and cruise ships.
“We’re trying to make sure those benefits are used the way they were intended,” state Rep. Michael O’Donnell (R) said, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. “This is about prosperity. This is about having a great life.”
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, often known as “welfare,” is one of several federal programs administered by states at the ground level. The Kansas TANF program, known locally as the Successful Families Program, offers a family of three as much as $429 per month in cash benefits. Kansas is one of at least 37 states that distributes benefits on government-issued debit cards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Under the new rule, a three-person family receiving the maximum benefit would have to go to the ATM more than a dozen times to get the full benefit, which would be whittled away by an 85 cent fee for each withdrawal after the first one. And the local cruise liner ATM will no longer be an option.
The other thing that this does is make it absolutely fucking impossible for these families to plan ahead. One of the ways to make dollars stretch is by buying in bulk. When I was an undergrad, I was living on a monthly stipend from my GI Bill and Army College Fund of 500 bucks a month as well as my monthly National Guard check (which at the time for a Sergeant was about 150 a drill weekend), plus I had two jobs (one as a bouncer and one at a clothing store) and I also did drywall/painting, and landscaping. Since my tuition was paid because I lived in a state that paid your tuition to a state run college if you were in their National Guard, I was basically very well off. Between that and lacrosse practice and games, the only thing I was short on was time, but I still seemed to have plenty of that to get myself into trouble.
Having said all that, I still would basically only go grocery shopping once a month, and I would go to several grocery stores and pick up whatever bulk items they had on sale. I would pick up a 10lb roll of ground beef and then go home and form burger patties out of it and put them in individual ziploc bags. I would find lasagne noodles and other ingredients cheap and I would make a lasagne, let it cool, and then put it in individual portions in tupperware bags. I asked my parents for a meat sicer for Christmas my sophomore year to help. After Thanksgiving, I would buy two frozen turkeys for dirt cheap, cook one, make a hot dinner the first night, slice up all the sliceable meat and preserve it, cut the odds off and use it to make chicken salad for sandwiches, save the bones and skin in the freezer and then with a couple dollars of fresh vegetables and 50 cents worth of rice from the everpresent 10lb bag of rice, make a big pot of soup and feed not only myself, but my roommates. I’d buy a ham after easter marked down and cut up the rest for sandwiches, save the bone and some meat and with some carrots and dried beans make a hearty soup. Ground pork on sale? No problem. Season it, put it in ziploc bags, and now you have sausage patties for breakfast. Canned green beans or corn on sale for 20 cents a can, I’d buy my weight in it. Canned tomatoes on sale for 30 cents a can- sauce for a month. A block of cheese is WAY cheaper and better than those individually wrapped slices, so I would get a block and slice it up as needed. I’d buy big restaurant sized mustard, and ketchup jars and put them in smaller squeeze bottles for use. And so on.
I didn’t have a car, so I would just take both of my duffle bags empty on the bus, hit the stores, stuff them full of everything, strap one to my front and one to my bag like we did with our A and B bags when the sirens were going off in Fulda, and hump them home. And I didn’t even have to carry the .50 cal barrels. I figure I ate like a king for less than 150 bucks a month back then. But it took a lot of work, it took planning and coupon clipping and watching for sales, and most of all, it took a hunk of money all at once. The only other times I would go to the store was to get milk and bread and eggs, and over the course of the month, going to the local convenience stores for those items, i probably spent the same amount or more I spent on the heart of my diet on my monthly shopping trips.
AND THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT OF WHY THIS IS SO FUCKING STUPID AND EVIL AND WASTEFUL. They’ll never be able to go to a proper grocery store and do a smart shopping trip, they are damned to a life of daily trips to convenience stores to give away a buck to the banks for the withdrawal and then probably another 2 bucks to the terminal provider, and then forced to buy processed crap with no nutritional value at inflated prices. You can’t even put this bill on a stupid/evil continuum because it is 100% stupid and 100% evil.
I fucking hate conservatives. I guess this gives them more opportunities to sneer at the poors when they are in front of them at the atm getting their bowl of daily gruel, so it’s a win for them.
Dickheads.
Chris
Because if there’s one place welfare recipients are likely to spend their money, it’s on four-figure cruises that most people with jobs can’t even afford.
I mean, fortune tellers, liquor stores, whatever, but the “cruise ships” line elevates the bill from the usual poor-shaming finger-waggling into full blown self-parody, and its drafters into the kind of people the writers of Kim Possible or Captain Planet would’ve dismissed as too cartoonish to be villains.
And what the hell is wrong with swimming pools? You don’t want poor people getting exercise?
Ben
Rethuglicans are just plain venal and stupid… not sure which one is worse. They seem to be incapable of imagining any worldview that doesn’t completely jibe with their own upper or upper-middle class upbringing.
Iowa Old Lady
Can they use the pool at the Y? Or must they walk on by.
Mnemosyne
What’s up with not letting them use their benefits at swimming pools? The Poors are not worthy of exercise or being in better cardiovascular shape? Poor kids are not worthy of having fun splashing around? And how the fuck much do public swimming pool visits cost in Kansas that they must be restricted by law?
schrodinger's cat
They want to bring back poor houses, debtor’s prisons and child labor. Their ideal seems to be a Dickensian world.
JMG
It’s simple sadism. The suffering of others is all that gives them pleasure. These are evil people who deserve to suffer mightily themselves.
Doug r
There has got to be something between this daily dollar routine and paying them the whole shebang on the last wednesday of the month.
Doug r
Comment failed
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
I can actually picture someone on welfare having a better-off family member who pays for them to go on a cruise with the rest of the family — I guess this would then restrict them from buying anything for themselves while on said cruise. It’s not like there are a whole lot of cruise ships departing from Kansas, after all.
Mike J
Of course they’re always telling us how those people are poor because they don’t know how to budget So they want to make it impossible.
germy shoemangler
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge, … it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?”
“Plenty of prisons…”
“And the Union workhouses.” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“Both very busy, sir…”
“Those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
schrodinger's cat
No matter what they do, they still keep getting elected.
Belafon
@germy shoemangler: Over Christmas, someone on twitter tried to argue that this showed that Scrooge was a liberal. Republicans would have never set up work houses.
Doug r
Welfare benefits should include a bus pass and maybe a basic pass at the Y. And a phone line or basic 3g service-to help in I dunno, finding a job.
Elizabelle
Thank Dog to Michael O’Donnell, because this business of cruisejacking poor people to force them to pay for luxury goods with their Obamanation EBT cards was getting out of hand.
Iowa Old Lady
@Doug r: I don’t actually see anything wrong with paying out all the benefit at once. I’ve have jobs that paid that way, and no one came along and said hey you, grownup lady, I’m sure you can’t manage that money, so let me tell you how.
jharp
You were quite a resourceful college kid.
And sounds like you would have made an awesome roommate.
Lot’s of good cooking and sounds like you weren’t around enough to get pissed off at.
Mark-NC
I sure wish I could get my hooks into that $429 / month. I would be livin’ the high life.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
In the old days, paying out once a month on a known schedule left people vulnerable to being robbed. The switch to EBT cards may have lessened that possibility, though.
germy shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: Because they’ve got a 24/7 propaganda machine run by Roger Ailes, and all the talk radio when they’re driving to the superstore.
Because when I read their comments on other blogs, it’s who they quote, long after the talking points have been disproven by mediamatters or balloon-juice.
Percysowner
@JMG: It’s absolutely sadism. They can’t even comprehend that being poor isn’t a barrel of laughs. They want to make sure that if you are poor, or mentally ill then you REALLY suffer, not just poverty but humiliation, shame and never, ever being able to escape.
Snarki, child of Loki
Just require that those SNAP cards can be used as voter-ID.
Professor
Elections have consequences. They should have voted and if they did vote, they should have voted for the party that would protect and safeguard their interest.
MattF
Well, the Port of Topeka is so busy these days– can’t let it get overrun with moochers on vacation.
Suzanne
This is ridiculous. I wonder if it’s an attempt to keep poor families from shopping at liberal-run places like Costco and keep them going to crappy conservative-run restaurants.
Seriously, just fuck these fucking people.
Chris
@Percysowner:
It took me some time to realize to what extent poor-o-phobia is a real prejudice in this country, every bit as intense and vicious as racism or sexism or homophobia (though of course it overlaps with them to quite an extent, which is part of why it’s so vicious). Not just from the part of greedy rich people who want to hang onto their money, but from a phenomenally large part of the population that derives no possible benefit from a stingy or nonexistent welfare state but just really, really, really want to watch people suffer.
Mary G
Fine rant, Mr. Cole.
Chris
@Mark-NC:
LOL. That wouldn’t even cover the montly rental of my fairly small room here in Miami, let alone allow me to add things like food and health insurance. Maybe Kansas is much much cheaper, but still…
And this is for a family of three.
And it’s “as much as” – this is the absolute maximum that they’ll allow.
Starfish
@Suzanne: Some places have Sam’s and not Costco’s. And I do not know the political allegiance of BJ’s wholesale.
Corner Stone
I spent a fucking hour yesterday trying to explain to my peeps how this was theft, and poor punishment for being poor.
How the fuck does it make sense to limit $25 a day and then charge bank fees on top unless it’s just a straight fucking ripoff?
Ruckus
@Chris:
And what the hell is wrong with swimming pools? You don’t want poor people getting exercise?
And swim with the hoy paloys? Everyone else would get poor cooties. For exercise they can fucking walk.
Besides I’m thinking that an EBT card wouldn’t have worked at a swimming pool in the first place, it’s not something you can eat that will make you fat.
Corner Stone
@Mark-NC:
Nicely done snark, good sir.
Miller High Life…brings back not so good mems.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
No, they want to bring back slavery.
Ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat:
They already have the poor house/debit prison. See MO, Ferguson.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Just changed the robbers. Now they wear 3 piece suits.
ETA They also have a better ROI. They take some from everyone, rather than more from a few.
Corner Stone
@Chris:
I thought that was hilarious. The poors sneak on board with their EBT and then buy all the liquors in the duty free zone and come back high as a kite on taxpayer dimes.
Lobster! Crab legs! Buffet!
Mnemosyne (tablet)
If I ruled the world, one thing I would do would be to make free home cooking classes available (not mandatory, just available) to people on food stamps, and throw in free cookware and storage containers for people who attended the classes. I bet places like Food Network would be glad to donate some of that Rachael Ray and Paula Deen cookware in exchange for a tax write-off.
Elizabelle
Um, also: isn’t Kansas pretty damned landlocked? Can you cruise within Kansas? (Rivers?)
This is like outlawing whaling in Oklahoma, isn’t it?
And dang it, they can’t get tatts or go to the dog races either.
Corner Stone
I am totes pissed that YouTube has started doing commercials in the middle of their videos.
BS
Elizabelle
In moderation, for using a banned word.
aimai
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Yes–of course the cooking classes should be done in grade school and high school but those kinds of “extras” have been done away with.
MattF
Oh, and the ban on going to swimming pools is to keep the coloreds out. It was quite a big deal, historically:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10495199
Just Some Fuckhead
@Doug r: The purpose of the daily ration is so the poors can’t blow it all on a couple t-bone steaks and crab legs.
Violet
So have the Democrats put up a graphic or sent an email or something that shows just how much money the banks are going to get out of this deal? The whole thing is horrible, but this service fee crap is a direct payment of taxpayer money to banks. I’d think most people wouldn’t be happy about that.
John Cole +0
I also shared a house with two guys, and our rent was 750 a month (250 a piece), but I found out a way to live rent free from April to November by talking to my landlord and agreeing to mow all her property lawns (she had 4-6 depending on the time) during those months. She didn’t have to worry about her grass not getting cut by whatever idiot promised to do her yards but then would inevitably not show up, didn’t have to have any cash going out, and all I had to do was buy a lawnmower and some gas every now and then and spend 4 hours per week mowing and my rent was taken care of. Pretty sweet deal.
I wish I had 1/3 the energy I had then. Plus I did it all while hungover or drunk. College was so fucking easy after a couple of years in the 11th Cav.
MattF
I guess the Kansas anti-poverty program consists of forcing poor people to leave Kansas. I’m betting that won’t actually work.
beth
@Elizabelle: But can’t they just withdraw the cash somewhere else and spend it in those places? How does this stop them anyway? What a miserable bunch of humans.
Elizabelle
And they passed it, on April 2nd. New lifetime cap of 36 months on TANF, but who wants to stay on it for long if you can’t pay for the dogtrack or hairweaves with your EBT card?
And I wonder if the mandatory state-issued photo ID will be accepted for voter identification. It better be. Because:
And you don’t want mad armed poors turned away from the polls with their super duper new “you might as well live under an ATM” cards.
On the bright side, the legislature is now on a 3-week break. So there is that.
Chris
@MattF:
It takes at least a little money to move to somewhere else, and by making sure they have as little money as possible and overregulating to death the things they’re allowed to spend them on, they make it even more difficult than it otherwise might be.
mai naem mobile
I’ve known seniors who intentionally do their big monthly shopping on the first Wednesday of the month at Frys (Kroeger) because you get 10 percent off on that one day of the year. Guess that wont be happening with this law. I’d love to see the campaign donation for the sponsor. Guessing this person’s got a bunch of bank donors.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Here in New England seafood is not that expensive. In season, mussels are about $3 to $ 4 a pound. Lobsters are sometimes as low as $6 to $7 a pound. What’s the deal with crab legs, why not the entire crab?
Llelldorin
@Chris:
I think it’s mostly that they really want the poor to be someone very much not at all like themselves–they want the poor to be poor because they’re Doing It Wrong. After all, the other option is at the poor are just them after a run of bad luck, which isn’t the kind of thought that lets you sleep well at night.
Conservatives have been using that way of thinking to expunge phrases like “down on his luck” from the lexicon as completely as possible for years.
Elizabelle
@beth: Tis true. Cash is fungible.
But that’s a long word, and sounds kind of scientific, don’t it?
Patrick
@Ben:
They are so incoherent in their world view. They hate welfare, but at the same time they love farm subsidies, they love tax breaks for oil companies, they hate the deal with Iran eventhough that would be far cheaper than another dumb war.
They think it is a sin to be gay, but they have no problem with all other sins mentioned in the bible such as adultery or covet your neighbor’s wife.
rikyrah
tell it.
tell it.
What’s wrong with swimming pools? It’s exercise.
Glidwrith
The bit about the cruise ships, etc, might relate to the ATM fees. Here in California, they tried poor shaming folks that used the ATMs in the c a s I n o s. They weren’t playing in them, just that the ATM fees were all waived. Maybe that is the case here, in which they are even more evil fucks than you thought.
MattF
@Glidwrith: I’m thinking there must be some winger legend about all those welfare queens on cruise ships. The problem is that no one here listens to AM radio so we’re all just in the dark about it.
Warren Terra
I’m a cheapskate, so I shop mostly at the Food-4-Less (a Kroger supermarket more downmarket and often 20% or more cheaper than the middle-class Raph’s three miles closer, even though it’s also a Kroger supermarket). This means I see a lot of people paying with their Food Stamps debit card (whatever the current program name is). Even in this supermarket, which caters in no small part to such people and so isn’t judging them, this means minor humiliations: running out of money, brands that aren’t allowed, having to ask for free shopping bags, etcetera. So, yeah, for a person privileged to avoid experiencing this life I do get to see a bit of it. And, I can tell you, the people grocery-shopping on the public’s dime aren’t buying pricey luxury goods, and they buy in bulk when they possibly can. From what I see at the checkout, a lot are buying groceries for their families (not just for one person, both in quantity and in types of products), and for the week. A daily limit would be crippling.
That said: this is a daily CASH limit, as I understand it, and the benefits use I see is NOT cash. I think (hope?) that the benefits programs are separate – I don’t think it’s legal to turn food stamps into cash. So, this might not affect the weekly shop, and the need to go over $25 as you buy in bulk. That is, assuming this state hasn’t replaced a more conventional food stamp program with this cash benefit, perhaps as a libertarian idea winning out over the more normal restrict-what-the-poor-can-buy impulse.
My Truth Hurts
Not only that but what ATM gives out $5 and $10 bills? None. Which means they will only be able to withdraw $20 at a time. $20 a day is not in any way about “prosperity” or “having a great life”. It’s about punishing people for being poor.
I did the bulk thing too when I had to live off food stamps for awhile. It wasn’t much to begin with but at least I could spend $100 at a time if I needed to. Food stamps made the difference for me. Without them I would have resorted to crime. Theft, selling drugs, anything. I wasn’t finding a job, I would have had no other choice to fend off starvation.
I have also heard that they want to make it illegal for food stamp recipients to buy steaks or seafood. As if there is any reason for that other than punishment. Sometimes when you are broke and half starved a nice big steak or seafood meal is a treat and makes the difference between a good quality of life and a bad one. Tobacco and booze do the same thing. Let people unwind and escape once in awhile. It is no joy to be homeless and hungry. The little things are what gets you through it.
God I hate these people.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Warren Terra:
One of the only times I was aware that someone ahead of me was using EBT at Ralph’s was when a woman tried to buy a block of pepper jack cheese, but only plain Monterey jack cheese is approved for EBT, so someone had to run to the dairy case to get the “right” cheese for her.
The one thing I have noticed is that it’s fairly common for someone using EBT to use EBT for the approved items and pay cash for the rest. I have a feeling that at least half of the “I saw someone buying crab legs with EBT!” claims that aren’t outright bogus are situations like that.
Warren Terra
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Sure, I see this all the time (either using cash to pay for non-approved items or using cash to pay the remainder once they’ve run out of EBT funds). But when I see this, the items being purchased are not silly luxuries; they’re daily essentials not otherwise covered, or they’re very minor indulgences. It’s not like the EBT funds have freed these people up to buy filet mignon with their cash, these people are genuinely struggling.
Zam
I worked as a cashier in a grocery store for 2 years and bagged groceries another year before that. I never once saw someone buy some ridiculous luxury item with food stamps, no lobster, crab, or t-bones. Yet every single conservative seems to have witnessed these things on multiple occasions while just standing in line. It’s fucking made up bullshit, I suspect the cruise thing is from another similar story, everyone “knows” poor people who used their EBT to go on a cruise, when in reality its just some dumb story from an internet forum.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@My Truth Hurts:
After watching my father die gasping for air after 50 years of smoking destroyed his lungs, kidneys, and liver, I will never be in favor of letting poor people buy tobacco with their benefits. Sorry, but if they want to commit suicide using my tax dollars, they’ll have to do it in a quicker and less expensive way than getting cancer or COPD.
Chris
@My Truth Hurts:
Living off of student loans isn’t exactly homeless level stuff (at least it hasn’t been in my case, I should say) but there’s been quite a few moments in the last few years when my definition of “luxury” was treating myself to a tortellini or ravioli dinner, instead of one made with cheaper and simpler pasta that had no meat.
I, too, hate these people. As I keep saying, the more sadistic the teabaggers get, the more empathy I have for the sentiment that drove the French Revolutionaries into the kind of rage we remember them for.
satby
@My Truth Hurts: This. Every single word.
Proud Liberal Dem
@MattF:
Leaving aside the fact that, statistically, there are a lot of white people on welfare- contrary to public (mis-)perception
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Crab legs reminds me of Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler’s excellent film about about Oscar Grant’s New Year’s Eve 2008 killing by the police.
Earlier that day, he shopped for crab legs for a family celebration — for his mom’s birthday; ended up being part of his last meal.
Wasn’t that he paid with an EBT card, but that they were a special treat to enjoy with your loved ones.
Which we cannot have the poor doing.
Spam in a can for the takers.
rikyrah
@My Truth Hurts:
You tell the truth.
MomSense
What’s the matter with Kansas?
Chris
@Proud Liberal Dem:
This can cut both ways; conservatives, at least the middle class and rich ones, have been known to hold up the white people on welfare once you point it out to them as vindication for themselves, saying “see! We’re not racist! The programs we oppose benefit people of all colors, so we’re opposed to moochers of all colors, not just the black ones!”
kc
Well, thank God they put a stop to all that welfare money getting blown on cruise ships.
fleeting expletive
I worked for HUD in the early seventies, coordinating with non-profits for residents of public housing. The Dept. of Agriculture had a food stamp cookbook that demonstrated how to prepare meals on public assistance and with commodity foods. It was all kind of hush-hush, as during the Nixon years there was this same disapproval of the poor having anything at all. We did, though, distribute the cookbook to housing projects so that they could make copies for residents. I still have one of the cookbooks in a box somewhere.
A week or so ago, I mentioned that I fell and messed up my eye. After one ER visit, and 4 visits to an ophalmologist, I go in tomorrow morning to the eye surgery center where the surgeon will drain the blood from my eye and attempt to reposition my intraocular lens implant. If that part of it fails then somewhere down the line the IOL will have to be replaced. When my daughter called this afternoon and asked if I was scared, I said I’m not sure. I’m just hoping to get my vision back at some point, such as it was in that eye. I’m mighty tired of these 4 different eye-drops, though.
Lavocat
Or, What Would Jesus Do? EVIL dickheads.
scav
@Mnemosyne (tablet): But, that’s still tinged with the Repub point of view, it’s “My” money “Those” people are spending, therefore “I” have control over their decision. Now all those “religious” companies are pulling the same thing, especially with women’s health care. It’s a messy situation. But, throwing in a “it’s for your physical health” reason isn’t that far different than “it’s for your spiritual wellbeing” rationale.
Hungry Joe
It’s important that the poor be miserable; the thought that someone using food stamps might be able to put together a decent meal and eat it while watching a flat-screen color TV drives these goons into a frenzy: “The least you can do is suffer. Eat crap in a dimly lit shack and see if you can shoo away the roaches.”
shell
Agree 100% with everything you’ve said here. Surprised they didn’t add mandatory drug testing at the ATM. Conservatives are determined to plum the depths of fucking cruelty.
*********
On a shallow note; love contrasting the image of one of Cole’s former jobs: bouncer, with the puppy-fostering, bed-sharing with multiple animals, natural chef we know here on BJ.
Chris
@Hungry Joe:
Said it before will say it again;
That interview of Ron Paul where he was asked if people without health insurance should just be left to die and the audience yelled “YEAH!” is modern conservatism distilled down to its purest essence. There’s nothing left but Dalek-level irrational rage, hatred and sociopathy.
currants
@Mnemosyne (tablet): You and me, babe. We could do some awesome stuff. Put farmers’ markets in poor neighborhoods with the cooking classes in the same place. Also help all farmers’ markets be able to accept EBT cards and offer the bonus that USDA had set up at one point (extra $$ if you buy at farmer’s markets). That said, the money doesn’t go very far, and fresh stuff is expensive. Right, soo maybe that’s not the BEST idea.
Still, it would be nice if we could be just a teeny bit more socialist (or hell, even less puritan) and make it so poor people could feel like they were getting a little help, not punishment. I’d gladly pay more taxes to help make sure kids wouldn’t be going to bed–or school–hungry.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@scav:
Sorry, but I do not agree that not providing cancer-causing substances to people is the same as refusing to give them food or medicine. In fact, I would argue that it’s immoral to provide something that you know will cause someone’s lingering death down the line. The “you’re just imposing your morality on other people!” argument in this case sounds to me like the gun nuts who argue that if I say they shouldn’t leave their loaded guns laying around for toddlers to use, I’m just trying to impose my morality on them because it’s their constitutional right to do whatever they want with their guns.
My tax dollars should not be used to kill people. I believe this for wars, for the death penalty, and for providing tobacco to people. I am not embarrassed to take a moral stance against killing people, and I do not want the money I pay to go towards that end.
Repatriated
@Elizabelle:
I’m guessing it’s targeted at riverboat cas!nos.
It’s still petty of them.
RaflW
At church today we got a reminder that Jesus the rabbi went around telling folks that it was wrong for a few to have so much when so many have so little. A little too much radicalism on the whole social justice thing, well that up and got him killed.
I think we know where Brownback would be in this tale.
currants
@John Cole +0: You were very resourceful–which somehow doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. You were also lucky enough not to also be a single parent at the same time, which seriously limits one’s ability to find roommates to share rent/space with, not to mention food and all the other things (having childcare you can afford while you mow the lawn, go to school, work whatever crap job and work-study job you can, and everything else).
Litlebritdifrnt
Here in NC fortunately they don’t have such restrictions. I shop at a store called “Nicks and Dents” when I go there on the first of the month the place is packed full with people stocking up for the month with their EBT cards at prices less than 50% of the grocery store prices. People living on food stamps don’t need to be told how to budget, they do it, and they don’t need some fucking law maker “teaching” them how to spend their money.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s all about the hate on the poors with these assholes, which is just one reason why they’re so tumbrel-worthy.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@currants:
That’s part of the mentality I can’t understand — if people are having a hard time getting by, why make things harder on them? If people are broke, shouldn’t we be mobilizing to make it easier for them to learn a trade, get child care, get health care, etc etc etc? I mean, I get that there are a whole lot of people out there who are convinced that punishment works despite the reams of evidence that it doesn’t, but it’s pretty clearly a faith-based position at this point.
currants
@Warren Terra: Yes. Like toilet paper. Or toothpaste.
Patrick
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
+1.
scav
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Well, we can exchange a complement of courtesies. I find your morality a little interfering, condescending and similar in essence to some really nasty stuff. People get to make their own bad choices. I also acknowledge that theres a large area of difficulty here because it’s a targeted program. But, snatching away small joys and comforts seems niggling.
Iowa Old Lady
@fleeting expletive: Best of luck with the eye surgery. Hope it goes well.
Also, I think it’s normal human nature to be scared before surgery.
Chris
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
In other words, much like their views on evolution, global warming, supply-side economics, public vs private sector efficiency, crime waves, drug use among welfare recipients and nonwhite people, torture, death panels, Obama’s birth certificate, and why things didn’t work out the way they wanted them to in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
jayjaybear
As a public employee in the (former) Department of Welfare (currently Department of Human Services)(of Pennsylvania), I can verify that TANF is a CASH benefit. It’s not Food Stamps (now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program). This crap is still terrible, but they’re not being limited to $25 a day on their food budget.
currants
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
As with so much else in conservative ideology. Some days I struggle to figure out how it is that I live in such a country.
I grew up in a church that preached that we should love one another, and I believed that–or at least that we should do our best to treat others as we would like to be treated. I ditched the religion along the way for lots of good reasons, but I still make an effort to treat others generously. Today, somehow, all those church people are wingnuts, including my family, and I simply cannot understand how you get from one position to the other without your head exploding.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mnemosyne (tablet): In our local jails people who cannot make bond sit there for months, if not years waiting for trial. In Onslow County the inmates are in their cells for 23 hours a day. Until recently the only books that were allowed were bibles. What the fuck is wrong with providing them with a library of text books so they could at least learn something during those 23 hours? How much would it cost to provide a classroom and an instructor from the local community college to teach them how to code for a couple of hours a week. I am sure that a bunch of bleeding heart liberals like me would be willing to donate to the jail for the desks, the chairs, the computers and the instructor’s time. Just last week a guy that had been sitting in jail FOR SEVEN YEARS awaiting trial was found not guilty of all charges. What did he learn during those seven years? Nothing. In seven years he could have walked out of jail a free man with a masters degree. Instead he is probably going to be homeless and jobless and end up right back in jail. It would save millions to educate these people while in jail because once educated they wouldn’t end up back in jail.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: It’s hard (or next to impossible) to move because in the new location you have new residency regulations to navigate and the person/family will be without benefits for some amount of time while establishing residency. (Can’t be giving benefits to recent arrivals, you know.)
NotMax
@My Truth Hurts
ATM within walking distance of the domicile is stocked with $1, $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills.
Could, if so inclined, withdraw three dollars.
nancydarling
I think someone has punked Michael “it’s about prosperity and having a great life” O’Donnell on his wiki page. I don’t know how to grab a screen shot, but it says this:
“It is rumored that the character Steve Newlin, from the popular television show “True Blood” was loosely based on Michael O’Donnell.”
If O’Donnell knows what his page says, he is too stupid to know that the character is an anti-gay bible banger who becomes a gay vampire. I have never watched True Blood, but I researched it a little. It is very campy, but serious in its social commentary about “the struggle for equal rights, discrimination and violence against minorities and homosexuals, the problems of drug addiction, the power of faith and religion, the control/influence of the media, the quest for identity, and the importance of family”.
None of this surprises me because I live in Arkansas. Don’t look back, Kansas, Arkansas may be gaining on you.
Chris
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Related; in undergrad years ago, I once had to research MS-13 for a class presentation. A few things that stuck with me;
1) The policies of the U.S. and its Central American allies to fight the gang centered largely on deportation and imprisonment. MS-13 gang members caught in America were deported en masse; in El Salvador, Guatemala or wherever, they were imprisoned en masse under “Mano Dura” programs supported, advised and partly funded by the FBI.
2) This has, as it turned out, been one of the biggest reasons for MS-13’s meteoric growth – prison is where they recruit new members, and the deportation to other countries is what allowed it to grow from a street gang in LA and a few other American cities into an international crime syndicate.
3) The only country that had had significant success reducing MS-13? Nicaragua. The country with a left-wing government that 1) didn’t have FBI advisers or listen to them, and 2) instead of the “hit hard and jail quickly and leave it at that” approach, invested heavily in rehabilitation programs to give gang members options once they got out of jail other than “go back to the gang.”
This was in the late 2000s, so if things have changed a lot since then, I’m accepting corrections. But it really struck me just how hard the right wing “all stick and no carrot” approach favored by the U.S. and its allies was failing, and how ridiculous it was that no one was looking at Nicaragua and going “huh, you know, maybe they’re onto something.”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@scav:
I will let you stand for 8 hours in the hospital room of someone dying of emphysema and you can tell me afterwards how mean I am for snatching the simple pleasure of cigarettes away from someone. I can tell you from personal experience that it is not a quick or pretty death.
NotMax
And lose the mustard.
:)
Suzanne
@scav: I think there’s a difference between a small comfort/joy that isn’t good for you but also isn’t bad for you within reason, like chocolate or wine, and a comfort/joy that we know to be potentially deadly and is already about the worst industry on the face of the earth, like tobacco. I understand your point and I typically agree with you, but I also think Mnem’s point is solid: our tax dollars should not be spent killing people, and they should go to making lives better.
jpe
The 25 limit is for ATM withdrawals only.
Remember: huffpo should be considered to for entertainment purposes only. Consider it information at your own risk.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Ruckus: This brings to mind the scene in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, where the African-American singer is allowed to perform at a hotel, but isn’t allowed to use the pool because of the “health code.” She mocks the manager by sticking her toe in the pool and splashing.
Later that night, as she walks back from her performance, she sees that the pool has been drained and is being scrubbed. By African-American men.
ellie
@schrodinger’s cat: True. Someone is voting for these motherfuckers.
Splitting Image
@Chris:
Carrots are unconstitutional.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Iowa Old Lady:
It’s “minor” surgery only when it happens to someone else.
Judge Crater
What these bastards want, and what they’ve wanted since Newt Gingrich came to town, is to regress to Dickensian England. They want Poor Houses and orphanages. They want the poor to live in squalor because the omniscient “free market” demands it.
Somehow, the mid-19th century has become the paradigm for American conduct. They want the freedom to sleep under bridges and beg for bread in the streets. This law essentially mandates living like a pauper. Begging from an ATM every day to eat.
God, it’s fucking Easter, and these “Christians” think that Christ is their savior. Bull shit. If Christ came back tomorrow he would walk down Wall St. and vomit. He would bring fire and brimstone down on every mega-church in the nation. Brownback is hideous. Their obeisance to wealth and power and their contempt for humanity is evil – it’s a sacrilege to the very religion they claim to profess.
I pray they are punished.
delk
@My Truth Hurts: Kind of funny, but 5 days a week I walk past a Chase on my way to an AA meeting.
It’s fairly new, and the first time I walked in to use the ATM, I was stumped for a second. Completely different UI, but, you get to choose the denominations, including $1.00.
It’s the perfect AA machine, I can get 5 singles on Monday and be ready for the basket the rest of the week.
PIGL
@Ben: Not stupid. This is evil.
God, I hate these people.
TOP123
@Elizabelle: @Litlebritdifrnt:
It is telling to me that bail bonds are on the same do-not-spend list as tattoos, dog tracks, and ‘sexually explicit retail’. Innocent until proven poor, I guess.
SiubhanDuinne
@RaflW:
Swear to god I read that as Jesus the Rabbit.
Which nicely melds two different Easterish memes.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Yes they do know how to budget.
PIGL
@Litlebritdifrnt: It’s hard to see an end to a path like short of
a) violent revolution;
b) outright death squads.
And b) would be more efficient than what the plutocrats and their white loser-class enablers are doing at the moment.
PurpleGirl
Okay, so the restriction to $25 per day isn’t on the food stamp benefits but on the cash benefits. It still stinks because it circumscribes other purchases. You are a mother buying clothing for school at the end of August. You know that the total purchase will have to be in the area of $100. If you go to one store that only takes cash (but has discount prices), you’ll need cash. That means taking out from the ATM over several days to get the money. Maybe the store lets you use the EBT card… but does the $25 restriction apply in that case. However you use the=card, those fees for taking money out mount up and reduce the actual amount you have to spend. And that cash benefit also will have to cover transportation costs and other purchases like shampoo and toilet paper, etc. It will take a lot of planning to do things we (non-poor) take for granted every day.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Dunno if you read this true encounter involving Easter treats.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patrick:
They are completely coherent in their world view. They are mean, racist shits. GOP behavior is perfectly consistent with that motivation. They are incoherent in their justifications, because they know they will be shamed for saying ‘I want to hurt people’ and ‘Black people are criminals.’ As mean, racist shits, they demand to hold the moral high ground and be praised for being mean, racist shits, so they come up with all kinds of noble sounding lies like ‘fiscal conservative.’
PurpleGirl
Also, does Kansas have a separate benefit that pays the rent for those who get cash benefits? In NYS, you have a separate rent benefit. But the state only pays a fixed amount of the rent. For a single person who get rent help, it is $234 a month and you have to have a cosigner who promises that the remainder of the rent will be paid. If you don’t have a co-signer, you don’t get the help. Now take it that the average rent in NYC for a small apartment is now around $1,000; that still leaves the person needing to get $766 for the rent. Many poor in NYC double or triple up with friends to be able to have that apartment. The rent allowance is more more a person with children but it istill usually isn’t the whole amount. The difference may come out of the cash benefit.
Yeah, we find ways of sticking it to poor people from every angle possible.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
LOL! No, I had missed seeing that, so thanks.
Although I do remember a (almost certainly apocryphal) story told by My Mother the Bookseller, back when Harry Kemelman’s first book was published. Someone came into our bookstore and asked if we had that new detective story Freddy The Rabbit Slept Late.
(But I still to this day can’t look at the complete collection of Kemelmans on my bookshelf and not think of his protagonist as “Freddy the Rabbit.”)
WereBear
I have come to believe that we are all seen as sources of income now… maybe not much in the case of the poor… but then, there are so many of them.
They make it up with volume.
If I were in charge of the world, there would be communal kitchens where the people who could cook would, the people who can’t would clean up, and bulk buys would arrive on a regular basis. Jobs, good food, and community.
g
So now the working poor who may be working in cruise line kitchens or as custodial staff, still needing food stamps to feed their families, won’t be able to use ATMs at their place of employment.
Sherparick
@My Truth Hurts: This is a very good point. I am not even a person can use an out network ATM to withdraw more than $20.00, but since the average fee is $4.35, http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/09/29/ap-survey-atm-checking-account-overdraft-fees-surge/16392783/ that basically means the person withdrawing gets $20.00 and the banks get $5.00; on the continuum of evil to stupid, I think this is mostly evil (poor bashing with bank enriching). The Koch brothers basically run Kansas and Wisconsin through Brownback and Walker, and of course hope to run the U.S. soon through Walker. In their view this is just another way of getting eh moochers and serfs into appropriate attitude of shame and subordination.
Kay
@g:
It’s such a small amount of money and yet there are people here who rant about it every day. It just eats them up inside that someone is getting welfare.
My son’s school has a school lunch payment program where they punch in a code to access their lunch account. One of the benefits is one can’t tell the difference between the kids who pay for lunch and those that get free or reduced lunch. It was controversial. There were adults who objected to it on the grounds that “we” should know who gets free lunch, I don’t know, so we can “call them out” or something. I just can’t imagine obsessing about it to that extent, I really can’t. OMFG move on, get a hobby.
The superintendent told us that 50% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch so I thought “well. they’ll shut up now since it’s HALF their neighbors” getting this, but no, that stat just made it worse. Now they’re even more convinced there’s “fraud” and the free and reduced lunch kids should be identified with a special payment method.
WereBear
@germy shoemangler: I just finished a biography of the Ekephant Man.
He decided to exhibit himself after experiencing a Victorian workhouse.
Showing his deformities to strangers was preferable.
WereBear
@Kay: There’s something deeply wrong with these people.
The only shocking part is how many of them there are.
TriassicSands
Kansas Republicans know that all recipients of food (and other) assistance really just want to spend the money on porn, booze, and porn and booze — because that’s what they spend their money on — oh, and hookers. Therefore, they need really strict rules to prevent abuse and to humiliate the poor as much as possible. GOP research (aka as wishful thinking + delusional thinking) shows that humiliating the poor and making their benefits as hard to use and as inefficient is the best way to end poverty. If Republicans could force the poor to fight for their benefits in an arena before huge live and TV audiences, they’d jump at the chance. After all, there’s nothing more entertaining to a Republican than desperate poor people.
Mike in NC
Screwing the poor is what they do, and finding a new revenue stream for the banksters is the cherry on top.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
The idea that poor people would have nothing better to spend their money on than porn or whatever when they need to eat is just too ridiculous for words.
When giving a few coins or dollars to a beggar, I occasionally used to wonder about the old “how do you know he’s for real?” saw. That ended when it finally occurred to me that nobody would be out on a street corner or at an intersection begging for loose change if they had any better options. That holds true even if they’re not being up front with you. Yes, maybe the guy with the sign is lying about being a veteran, and maybe the guy hobbling on a broken leg is just pretending in order to gain extra sympathy, but if they’re out there begging for change, it’s because they fucking need it. Full stop.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Not saying they don’t need it or that they have better options, in the vast majority of cases I’d bet they don’t. On the other hand they can make pretty good money on the right street corner in CA, or probably any major population area. There is always lots of traffic passing them, they don’t need to get much from any person, they have a volume business.
Tree With Water
Cole: Your post would make an excellent campaign speech. Not for the honorable senator Manchin or any of his ilk, of course. But for a better breed of West Virginia politician. Maybe one of these days you’ll be able to lend your talents in some fashion to reshaping the political landscape in your own back yard. Talking horse sense to people makes for a mighty persuasive argument, and you’re pretty good at it.
Mike G
Banks make political contributions, welfare recipients don’t.
As a bonus, the policy fucks over the poor, which they consider an end unto itself, so it’s a win-win for punishment-and-sadism Republicans.
Gretchen
Kansas has casinos on “boats”. I’m wondering if this is to prevent people from spending their money at the casino.
boatboy_srq
@schrodinger’s cat: Ayuh. They read Dickens, not as social criticism, but as instruction manual.
blueskies
@Chris:
As other’s have pointed out, it’s a long-standing thang, and here is being used as a dog whistle. This let’s the poor white people know that, while their betters are screwing them YET AGAIN, they’re doing it for all the right and agreeable reasons.
My Truth Hurts
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
“After watching my father die gasping for air after 50 years of smoking destroyed his lungs, kidneys, and liver, I will never be in favor of letting poor people buy tobacco with their benefits. Sorry, but if they want to commit suicide using my tax dollars, they’ll have to do it in a quicker and less expensive way than getting cancer or COPD. ”
Your attitude is part of the problem. You seem to think you know what is better for others and you also seem to think you have some sort of ownership over those benefits. It is not just “your” tax dollars you self centered ninny. We all contribute to them and I have no problem with whatever anyone wants to spend them on. How much of that pack of smokes do you think your pennies actually contributed to? About $0.0000001 that’s how much.
Being a know it all busy body doesn’t help anyone but you. Try again. So far, you fail at compassion and empathy.
My Truth Hurts
@NotMax: “ATM within walking distance of the domicile is stocked with $1, $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills.
Could, if so inclined, withdraw three dollars. ”
Bullshit. Where is this magical ATM? In 1989? I have lived on the east coast, the west coast and the midwest and have not encountered an ATM like that in almost 20 years. For the sake of argument I’ll bite and agree there must be a few left somewhere, but would wager they are few and far between to the point that statistically they do not exist.
Try again, you fail at snark.
My Truth Hurts
@delk: “Kind of funny, but 5 days a week I walk past a Chase on my way to an AA meeting.
It’s fairly new, and the first time I walked in to use the ATM, I was stumped for a second. Completely different UI, but, you get to choose the denominations, including $1.00.
It’s the perfect AA machine, I can get 5 singles on Monday and be ready for the basket the rest of the week.
I call bullshit. You people refuting the ATM point have nothing to offer but snarky contrarianism. You make stuff up. Anyone and everyone knows that most every single ATM these days in the US only offers $20 bills. Even if that is wrong my points are still correct and valid about these measures being nothing but punishing the poor for being poor.
Aaron
Here in NY people who have EBT cards can only use it at the grocery store. The grocery store has to sign up and be allowed and train the cashiers the rules and they monitor the rules like no beer, hot food, or cigarettes. the idea that you go to an ATM and get cash seems strange to me. how do you ensure compliance?
Also I have seen one ATM in my life that gave out singles (and change!). It was in a chase in manhattan. You could ask for $3.38 and it would give you singles, a quarter a dime and three pennies.
mr_gravity
The ATM I frequent allows me to enter the amount that I wish to withdraw. The only limitation is that I have money in my account equal to the amount I withdraw. Next time I’m there I will try to get just one dollar. There is no service charge because I have an account at the bank which owns the machine.
I’ve never been homeless or on food stamps but I was a musician so I know a little about poverty.
Suzan
This does not apply to food stamps or SNAP. This also does not apply to purchases, only cash withdrawals. As to the liquor stores, that is forbidden by federal law (as well as gambling places, bars stuff like that). I don’t think the federal law prohibits fortune tellers, swimming pools or cruises, but its been a year or so since I read it. So I suppose you could use your TANF card to pay for a cruise, just not at the ATM on or near the cruise ship.
Also, you can’t get cash for food stamps. You can only spend them at a store on food.
Also, there is a federal provision that mandates that states find a way for clients to get the money without any fees. We did it by allowing one or two (maybe three?) cash withdrawals free of charge. But I’m talking about cash assistance AKA welfare, TANF. And frankly, I’ve not looked at the provision for a number of years so I guess it could have changed.
Some states set aside some funds for bus passes, even help buying a car. My state does and I’m in a conservative state (Utah) but the feds keep limiting our ability to provide those types of funds. The original welfare reform was much better than it is now. i am not defending our system. It will never pull, or even help people pull out of poverty. There were just some wrong impressions from the article. It seems clear the author didn’t really understand either.
BruceJ
@Mnemosyne: This is Kansas. The public pools have been closed to pay for tax cuts for the rich pigs.