NC welfare recipients can buy booze and tobacco products with taxpayer money

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Spending your cash benefits on legal products isn't "welfare fraud". Depending on what you spend it on it might be stupid, or unethical (e.g. if you have kids going hungry and you're buying cigarettes), but it's not illegal, and it's not fraud. Cash benefits such as TANF, Social Security, and Unemployment allow the recipients to spend them how they see fit. Just like I can make a shortsighted decision to spend my salary (which also comes from taxpayers) on a trip to Disney when I should be saving for retirement, a woman receiving welfare can spend her cash benefits on toenail polish when they should be buying her kids books.

Fraud is when you lie or hide or misrepresent yourself to receive benefits that you are not entitled to under the current law. If you overstate a disability, or claim you aren't getting child support, or don't report income you earn from an under the table job, those would be examples of fraud.

 

[Charade]

To be honest, if you are in a situation where you have to accept government welfare, you can spend it on whatever you damn well please. You have my utmost empathy.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Did it move out with common sense?

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Did it move out with common sense?

How does dictating how someone spends their money create personal responsibility?

It would seem to me that the people supporting personal responsibility are the people who allow people to make choices with the money they have, and then to suffer the consequences such as running out of money because you bought some smokes.

 

[Charade]

Spending your cash benefits on legal products isn't "welfare fraud". Depending on what you spend it on it might be stupid, or unethical (e.g. if you have kids going hungry and you're buying cigarettes), but it's not illegal, and it's not fraud. Cash benefits such as TANF, Social Security, and Unemployment allow the recipients to spend them how they see fit. Just like I can make a shortsighted decision to spend my salary (which also comes from taxpayers) on a trip to Disney when I should be saving for retirement, a woman receiving welfare can spend her cash benefits on toenail polish when they should be buying her kids books.

Fraud is when you lie or hide or misrepresent yourself to receive benefits that you are not entitled to under the current law. If you overstate a disability, or claim you aren't getting child support, or don't report income you earn from an under the table job, those would be examples of fraud.

If there are restrictions on what you can spend welfare benefits on, SS and UI doesn't come with strings attached, what would you call using it things you're not allowed to use it for?

The point is if you are receiving assistance, it's supposed to be used for essentials, not non-essentials. Booze is a non-essential. So is 250 channels with HBO or a premium smart-phone service. You get the idea.

If you can afford those, you don't need assistance.

 

[Pipkin]

How does dictating how someone spends their money create personal responsibility?

It would seem to me that the people supporting personal responsibility are the people who allow people to make choices with the money they have, and then to suffer the consequences such as running out of money because you bought some smokes.

Spending your OWN MONEY teaches personal responsibility. When one accepts a handout from taxpayers there should be strings attached. For those who say that it is impossible to manage, I have an Flexible spending account card. When I pay for a prescription or any other authorized charge, it is debited. If I attempted to purchase something not permitted by the 'government', the charge is rejected. Stop the cash withdrawals. In Hawaii, Massachusetts and Connecticut, recipients earn the equivalent of $45K in government benefits. What is the incentive for "personal responsibility". Perhaps its time to consider what we used to have; government cheese, flour, sugar, powdered milk and a card that only works with food items, not lobster.

 

[Charade]

How does dictating how someone spends their money create personal responsibility?

It would seem to me that the people supporting personal responsibility are the people who allow people to make choices with the money they have, and then to suffer the consequences such as running out of money because you bought some smokes.

The assistance isn't their money. It's a generous benefit from taxpayers.

It's irresponsible to spend this on non-essential things.

 

[Grog]

Sounds like your friend, the RN, should get a different job.

For simply saying that they get mad for having to pay $2? It didn't sound like she was being judgmental or dislikes her job to me, just stating a fact to a friend. The stupid in this thread is so strong it burns.

 

[EMom]

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Did it move out with common sense?

Yes, it moved out. It currently resides in Section 8 housing.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

If there are restrictions on what you can spend welfare benefits on, SS and UI doesn't come with strings attached, what would you call using it things you're not allowed to use it for?

The point is if you are receiving assistance, it's supposed to be used for essentials, not non-essentials. Booze is a non-essential. So is 250 channels with HBO or a premium smart-phone service. You get the idea.

If you can afford those, you don't need assistance.

But there aren't restrictions on what you can spend TANF benefits on. Just like SS, or UI, or SSDI there are restrictions on who can get the money, but once you receive it there are no restrictions on how you spend it, so if you spend it on cigarettes you are not committing fraud.

If you work around WIC or food stamp rules to trade the vouchers for cigarettes, then yes, that's fraud. If you take your Medicare benefits and find a doctor who will take them without providing treatment and give you cash back. Then you're committing fraud. But cash benefits, including TANF, do not come with those restrictions.

To be honest, I can't even imagine how we'd possibly police what people spend cash benefits on without it costing the government and the tax payer a huge amount of time and money. Food stamps is easy, because it's just one product, but the line between essential and non essential is very fuzzy. Are we really going to certify every product as essential/non essential? Toilet paper is essential, but what about Charmin? Is that a luxury? School supplies? All of them are essential, or not the shiny ones with the mutant ninja turtles that cost $.50 more. If that's OK, what about the expensive graphing calculator you need for calculus class?

In addition, there are times when people need cash. You need cash to pay for a child's field trip, or a neighbor to babysit so you can still go to job training even though it's a professional day. Are we going to make those things impossible?

The reality is that cash benefits make more sense than trying to police every purchase. Yes, sometimes people make choices that I wouldn't make. Same is true of people who earn a salary or who get other kinds of cash benefits. But allowing people to make their own choices to feel the consequences of those choices, whether it's being rewarded for saving money by finally having a TV, or learning that a few cartons of cigarettes means you miss out on things at the end of the month, is part of helping learn to take personal responsibility.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Did it move out with common sense?

Indeed. Common sense has moved out.

 

[Pipkin]

The only way to definitely eliminate fraud would be to bring back the workhouse, where poor people are allowed access to only the most basic essentials required for life. Of course, this also strips them of their basic human dignity, but that is OK because they are "poor" and not worthy. It will also teach them their proper place, which is to be grateful to the hard working masses.

seems like a really compassionate and viable alternative that everyone would be comfortable with, right .

While you have said this with a heavy supply of sarcasm, what it more compassionate; perpetuating a state of chronic dependence on government or finding a pathway to a better, independent life. Consider Ben Franklin's comments on the poor. They are more than appropriate for today.
"I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

― Benjamin Franklin
tags: general-welfare, government

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

The assistance isn't their money. It's a generous benefit from taxpayers.

It's irresponsible to spend this on non-essential things.

No, it's their money. It might have once been the taxpayer's money, but once you give someone money it becomes theirs. Just like my teacher salary is made of money that was once the taxpayer's and is now mine. And my mother spent HER money to get her hair cut this week, even though that money came from her social security check and used to belong to the taxpayers.

And yes, it is irresponsible to buy cigarettes. But forcing people to do things doesn't build personal responsibility. If that were true the current generation of overparented kids would be the most responsible generation ever.

 

[Pipkin]

But there aren't restrictions on what you can spend TANF benefits on.

The first untruth about TANF, is that it is temporary. Unfortunately it has become a way of life for far too many. Recently Maine Wire.com found that TANF has been withdrawn at ATMs in every state in the country including Hawaii and the Caribbean, not to mention Disney World. Now I am sure that the good people of Maine did not intend to provide Disney Vacations for welfare recipients, nor trips to the Caribbean. There is a way to stop this but there is a reluctance on the part of politicians to admit that they have been chronically DUPED!

 

[Pipkin]

No, it's their money. It might have once been the taxpayer's money, but once you give someone money it becomes theirs. Just like my teacher salary is made of money that was once the taxpayer's and is now mine. And my mother spent HER money to get her hair cut this week, even though that money came from her social security check and used to belong to the taxpayers.

And yes, it is irresponsible to buy cigarettes. But forcing people to do things doesn't build personal responsibility. If that were true the current generation of overparented kids would be the most responsible generation ever.

Your teacher earns her salary, even if it was once yours so the comparison is not valid. They did nothing to earn it except become dependent on those from whom the money was confiscated.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Your teacher earns her salary, even if it was once yours so the comparison is not valid. They did nothing to earn it except become dependent on those from whom the money was confiscated.

You misread that. It was my salary, that I earn as a teacher, used to belong to other taxpayers. Very little of it came directly from me since I happen to live and pay taxes in a different state than the one in which I teach.

 

[Charade]

No, it's their money. It might have once been the taxpayer's money, but once you give someone money it becomes theirs. Just like my teacher salary is made of money that was once the taxpayer's and is now mine. And my mother spent HER money to get her hair cut this week, even though that money came from her social security check and used to belong to the taxpayers.

And yes, it is irresponsible to buy cigarettes. But forcing people to do things doesn't build personal responsibility. If that were true the current generation of overparented kids would be the most responsible generation ever.

Sure, it's their money now but it usually (and should) come with restrictions. If you are given money for rent assistance, it's meant for rent. If you get a roommate to reduce your rent and then spend the difference, your rent benefit should be reduced.

Comparing a taxpayer funded salary and welfare is invalid. They are two different things.

 

[Charade]

You misread that. It was my salary, that I earn as a teacher, used to belong to other taxpayers. Very little of it came directly from me since I happen to live and pay taxes in a different state than the one in which I teach.

The difference is one is earned, the other is a societal benefit. Defining them as the same is the problem. They are not.

Here's the issue I have with this "it's now their money..." argument. Suppose a person/couple with a child is receiving WIC, welfare and unemployment. It's all their money, right? Suppose they find a way, like getting a roommate to offset living costs, which isn't a bad idea, takes the difference and splurges on something really non-essential, like some jewelery or an expensive set of shoes or has a premium smart-phone or cable with 250 channels and HBO channels. Why should taxpayers be on the hook for those?

Why shouldn't it be up to the person receiving these benefits to make personal sacrifices to reduce the cost to taxpayers?

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Unless you're mentally ill, nobody who's starving is going to spend their last buck on a tattoo or cigs instead of a meal.

Some people are on gov't assistance AND have disposable income after meeting basic needs. The implication here is they have other sources of income - be it under the table cash-paid legitimate jobs or maybe some illegal source of income. THESE are the people nobody wants on public assistance.

 

[Janepod]

Can they buy Funyuns, Ding Dongs, sugary soda, and other unhealthy garbage with the money? If so, might as well let them buy alcohol and tobacco. These are all legal, though unhealthy, items. Where do you draw the line?

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Can they buy Funyuns, Ding Dongs, sugary soda, and other unhealthy garbage with the money? If so, might as well let them buy alcohol and tobacco. These are all legal, though unhealthy, items. Where do you draw the line?

I worked at a little 24-hour 7/11 type place (Majik Market) about 25 years ago. I remember there were very specific items we were allowed to sell to folks using food stamps and chips and soda weren't on the list. Even a prepared sandwich was a no-go. I think it's much different today.