I have a huge pet peeve! Welfare. Now please don't misunderstand me, welfare, food stamps and the like are all very important programs for those that are not well off and need a little bit of help. I have no problem with this. I used food stamps when I was in NY for a short time as a matter of fact.
No, the issue I have with some people that ask the government for financial help is that they get approved for it, but there is no way to keep them from using for things they absolutely don't need to be buying while they are in the situation they are in. There are two prime examples of this.
First example is lottery tickets. When you are on financial subsidies you do not need to be buying lottery tickets. They are expensive, they largely do not win and if they do win a major amount you have to report that to the government, and you're probably going to lose your benefits anyway. Granted you may lose your benefits for winning a large amount of money, but at the same time those benefits are not granted to a person so they can buy lottery tickets as what in their mind may be their plan for getting out of the hole.
Huffington Post did an amazing article about lottery tickets this morning that got me thinking about this again. In that article it talked about a newly drafted piece of legislation that would ban welfare recipients from spending government granted money on lottery tickets. State House majority leader Paul Stam states "We're giving them welfare to help them live, and yet by selling them a
ticket, we're taking away their money that is there to provide them the
barest of necessities" and called it essentially a scam and the advertising for the North Carolina lottery "just fraudulent"
Now, anyone that knows me well enough knows that I have a real issue with the GOP in general because of their outrageous ideas on things like Gay Marriage, Women's reproductive rights, money handling (trickle down economics) and so forth. This is one of those rare times where I have to stand up and applaud a member of the GOP for getting something right!
Now understand where I'm coming from here. I'm just coming out of working in a part of the retail industry where convenience stores and gas stations live. As a cashier I had to watch as people used food stamps, rather irresponsibly considering how expensive convenience stores tend to be, on things they didn't need to begin with.
I have twice seen people come in with their children and lay down several hundred dollars on nothing but scratch off lottery tickets, power ball and mega millions and whatever other lottery happened to be available at the time. In both those instances, both people were parents, had one or more of their kids with them and refused to buy them even a healthy apple, or a small bag of chips because they "didn't have enough money for that"
You bloody idiots. You have the money for that! You're just more interested in maintaining your daily greed habit, than using the money that we workers are paying into the welfare program with our taxes, be it a small amount.
there is another pet peeve where this is concerned. Alcohol and Cigarettes. I cant tell you how many people Ive seen either be on food stamps buying 50 or more dollars in Cigarettes at a time per week (regular customers for the win) or buying similar amounts of alcohol...or both. I nor anybody else, are paying our taxes so that people can maintain these dirty habits that they should be quitting.
I'm going to go a step further. I think that Lottery, Cigarettes, booze of any kind, should be something that people are not allowed to purchase if they are on government help programs. I think that what North Carolina is doing is a great and smart idea. I just don't think it goes quite as far as it should.
Welfare abuse is way too widespread. Its really time someone do something to work the problem out. I understand people are hurting. Hey, pound for pound so am I. That's no reason to misuse whats given you
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