Kansas passes law banning food stamp receipients from pools, movie theaters

[King]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/06/kansas-wants-to-ban-welfare-recipients-from-seeing-movies-going-swimming-on-governments-dime/

In summation, anyone who receives assistance in Kansas will be required to have the bank accounts frozen and limited to $25 a day withdrawal and all credit/debit card purchases will be monitored, restricting them from purchasing any "luxury items" with their own money.

It's this kind of unnecessary spitefulness that needs to be purged from the Republican Party. Forget the morality of welfare and mooching and all the talking points. This plan (and other similar welfare reform proposal popping up in GOP states) simply make no sense from a fiscal conservative/small government stand point. The bureaucracy required to enforce this kind of intrusion and restriction on recipients will likely cost significantly more than if they just gave these people thousands of dollars in straight up cash.  It's pure slashing of the nose to spite the face.

[King]

Strings attached to welfare benefits. Whatever.

Taxpayer waste on administrators and lawyers. Whatever.

[King]

Makes sense. Basically, it's saying, "Okay, we'll give you food stamps paid for by the American taxpayer. But if we find out you're using assistance for shopping at Victoria's secret, or going to the movies, then we take it away."

Similar to mandatory drug testing for welfare.

Unless I'm missing something, if so please elaborate.

Which option makes more sense, as a small government conservative:

(1) Paying $1000 per person, $300 in benefits, and $700 to salary a nurse to drug test, an accountant to monitor spending, a social worker to monitor behavior, a lawyer to prosecute fraudsters, a second lawyer to defend the state against rejected claim lawsuits, and an ombudsman to monitor the nurse, the accountant, and social worker.

OR

(2) Paying $300 per person, all $300 in benefits, paying $0 in the rest and risking fraud and occassional welfare queens?

[King]

I can't believe Republicans are okay with the bank account freezing aspect. The government taking control of your money and demanding how it be spent is hardly a libertarian concept.

It's almost as if poor people just completely don't matter to them.

THEY DO MATTER. But this is the real world. We see a woman pop out kids like a Pez dispenser KNOWING the more children she has, the more government money she gets. We see women shopping like they're Paris Hilton when they are on "assistance". It's like, "Oh yeah, you get our tax dollars instead of working, but you use it for shopping!"

Doesn't THAT matter to you?

It costs less to have no children than to have any. The benefits only make it cheaper but in the end you pay more than $0 out of pocket to have a child.

You also conveniently ignored my question about the $1000 vs the $300, but that's to be expected. Acknowledging it would force you to change your view.

[King]

Mike is definitely real. We wouldn't have laws like the ones in Kansas if a good percentage of the population weren't fascists like him.

[King]

My point is simple. We need welfare. We need entitlements. But it has to be reformed so people can not abuse the system.

My point is simple: protections against abuse cost more than abuse. Just accept the abuse and move on.

[King]

My point is simple. We need welfare. We need entitlements. But it has to be reformed so people can not abuse the system.

My point is simple: protections against abuse cost more than abuse. Just accept the abuse and move on.

You do need some protections against abuse simply to discourage it. Basic cross checks of tax returns should catch most cheats, though.

Yes. This is why I support distributing welfare benefits through the IRS/Treasury tax returns in form of a negative income tax. It would eliminate most "fraud" without any need for ridiculously intrusive laws and all the bureaucrats that come with it.

All we should care about is if if they really need it financially, which the IRS can determine. If they spend it on lobster tails or movie tickets, as people like Reaganfan and at FOX shake in their boots over, the problem solves itself because they'll run out of money. Expensive purchases don't need to be banned because they're impossible to budget, and if a person can budget it and not run out of benefits, power to them.

Otherwise, fraud prevention welfare reform is pure welfare for lawyers and bean counters. Nothing more.

[King]

I agree with everything in your post, King, except there's an element of moral hazard that comes in if children or other dependents are involved.

Yeah, if you are giving money to an addict or a compulsive gambler, you are contributing to a problem.  That doesn't mean "solutions" like this do any good or aren't worse than the problem.

Well, a workable system of the negative income tax, as I see it, is that in order to receive it, there has to be some employer doing this for you--similar to FICA only instead of withholding money, the employer is adding money to your check that the government reimburses to them. It's purely a supplemental income program not to replace SSI disability or TANF. So in that sense, a drug addict would not be able to receive welfare benefits if they can't at least hold a part time job to produce tax forms.

I understand concerns, but to me stopping addiction is not a supplement income problem. It's very War on Drugs to think cutting drug addicts from money stops the problem. There should be a drug rehab program in this country, but tying it to benefits won't solve anything.