California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has moved to stop a legitimately disturbing trend: welfare recipients using state-issued debit cards withdrew welfare payments as cash from casino floors. Since October 2009, welfare recipients have withdrawn more than $1.8 million in taxpayer cash on casino floors.
Schwarzenegger issued an executive order requiring welfare recipients to “promise ” they will use cash benefits only to “meet the basic subsistence needs” of their families. It is not clear what penalties come from broken promises. More than half of the tribal casinos and poker rooms in California showed such withdrawals using the debit cards issued by the state in 2002.
The state is moving to get the card vendor to blocking its use at casino machines. Of course, they could still take cash at other locations (soon to be located near casinos) and let the good times roll.
Source: LA Times.
Generally, people who want to do good end up creating more trouble without meaning to do so. Those who want the State to do right and to do well by the people are unwittingly creating a patriarchal — something which all of them hate with all the rage they can muster — state, and forcing the poor people to become permanently dependent on a benefactor. Of course, they will say that when the state fulfils its social and economic obligations towards the poor, it is not doing a favour and that it is merely duty-bound to do so.
There is something troubling about this. The simple fact is that the more one is dependent on the State, the less free one is. One of the defining features of freedom is that you are responsible for yourself, and that includes your basic and other needs. Yes. The self-reliant man/woman is the free man/woman in the old fashioned, classical sense. What the State ought to be doing is to ensure that no one comes in the way of enjoying your freedom — other individuals, other groups including the state itself. Put in another way, all of us have put up this mechanism called the State so that we can enjoy our freedoms. By legislating rights which only the State can fulfil, we are letting go of some of our invaluable freedom.
It’s time that all of America puts a stop to this welfare fraud. Quit giving money to women who are too lazy to work and just keep popping out babies every 9 months to get more money on the welfare program so they can hand it over to the gangster boyfriend who lives right there in the home . The brats are not seeing one dime of this money. It’s going on B.S. They need to make them line up for meals. Let them live in tents and feed them birth control pills. Put a stop to this crap !!! They are continually breeding more welfare recipients. Why do we keep feeding them ?
The children turn out to be lazy just like the parents. And most welfare recipients are a burden to school systems. Now People this is the truth ! The ones of you who don’t like it are the ones that are guilty. The rest of us are tired of keeping your miserable lives up.
Lol you socialist are a riot. First of all, you’re saying that because any money is spent irresponsibly, then it’s okay to spend all money irresponsibly. I guess we should have sent the middle east a fruit basket after they killed thousands of Americans. Secondly, the reason wealth is unevely distributed is only some people want to work hard to become wealthy. Success is NOT a result of chance, as liberals like to believe. That evil 2% of people with the money are already paying almost 50% of the taxes. That means the lazy trash is getting a free ride. Why don’t you stop being jealous and hateful of hard working people and let their success motivate you to achieve the same thing?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: consumer and worse, service, economies are the ultimate in illusion. The only real economic power is in production capacity.
CCD,
Ugly for the economy in general considering we have a consumer economy now instead of a production economy. Can’t consume if you’re struggling to get by. Along those lines, I saw an interesting article today in which Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel called out the myth that off-shoring for lower labor costs is beneficial. His main point was that “[n]ot only did we lose an untold number of jobs,” says Grove, “we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today’s ‘commodity’ manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow’s emerging industry.” His solution is to create incentives for domestic production, including a tax penalty for off-shoring.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-01/how-to-make-an-american-job-before-it-s-too-late-andy-grove.html
Chris you accurately called it. Since CA does not have a budget the Gov is lowering state employee’s hourly rate to the min, $7.25.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/01/2864148/schwarzenegger-orders-minimum.html
UGLY…for family budgets.
‘Byron 1, June 30, 2010 at 11:46 pm
the only problem with the idea of taxing corporations is that they don’t pay taxes we do. all they do is jack up the price to cover the taxes. so the pair of shoes that cost 10 bucks now cost twelve and we pay the tax. and smaller companies that might have been able to compete at 10 but cant at twelve go by by.’
that’s unfortunately an excellent point…what do you suggest then?
also, that really doesn’t splain the legal movments to protect the corporations from having to behave responsibly NO MATTER WHAT ie; capping liabilities etc….
should they not, at the least, play by the same rules as everyone else?
Right CCD.
Imagine there’s exactly a hundred people on some island society called Freedom & Democracy where there’s exactly 100 pennies to divide amongst them and then, say, somebody we elect as the leader came up with the idea that the best system that humans could ever hope to achieve, in fact it’s such a brilliant system that everyone should be eager to send their 1st born kid off to fight and die for, is one where 2 people get 80 pennies and 98 people get 20 pennies to split.
Imagine how exciting this system will be, proclaims the leader, who happens to be one of the lucky 2 people. Isn’t everybody just all eager to get started building Freedom & Democracy!
Consider how ingenious the propaganda system must be to successfully promote such an iniquitous social arrangement as the pinnacle of the greatest country that ever existed.
Imagine the social forces at work & the starvation of education necessary to allow some laid off person with no health insurance to shriek at some town hall meeting that they don’t want no stinking government run free health care!
Like Noam Chomsky said about the American ruling class propaganda machine — “Goebbels would have been proud.”
Good point George. A billion bucks for security for a G20 concert. WTF? It’s an outrage. Somebody’s stealing. More corporate welfare on display, no doubt to a handful of security & consulting firms, probably some new division of Blackwater. The whole thing is disgusting.