Congress to Welfare Recipients: No More Strip Clubs, Casinos, or Liquor for You

Posted by Enrique on 02.08.2012

Public interest



In these tough economic times when the U.S. has run up an obscene amount of debt, it's depressing how unserious our elected officials are about reducing the size of government. The mere suggestion of slowing the growth of government spending (not even actual cuts) is typically described as catastrophic, while any proposals to cut actual spending are so tiny they're basically meaningless.

The latest example of the "cuts so tiny they're meaningless" genre is the Welfare Integrity Now for Children and Families Act, which the U.S. House passed just last week by the overwhelming vote of 395-27. When a bill has that much bipartisan support and contains the phrase "Children and Families," it must be rubbish. And in fact, the purpose of the WIN for Children and Families Act (barf) is to prevent welfare recipients from spending their benefits in strip clubs, casinos, or liquor stores. Because apparently that's going to put a dent in that $15 trillion debt. Christ.

The story so far…


Killjoy

A few fun facts about Louisiana Congressperson Charles Boustany (pictured above):

1. He's a cardiovascular surgeon by training
2. He's serving his fourth term in Congress
3. He cares about children and families as much as he cares about taxpayers

To demonstrate how much he cares, Boustany introduced the WIN bill to "Protect Taxpayer Dollars from Waste, Fraud, and Abuse" according to the press release on his website, which also says:

"Congress has an obligation to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent appropriately. This legislation stops waste, fraud, and abuse within the welfare program. It protects the public interest by ensuring money meant to help Americans get back on their feet is used for that very purpose. Providing access to welfare funds on EBT cards in strip clubs, liquor stores, and casinos was never the intent of the program. This bill holds states responsible for protecting taxpayer funds while continuing to provide the support many American families need during these difficult times."

If you're interested, you read the WIN for Children and Families Act here, and it's only 500 some-odd words, which is pretty forgiving by the typical standards of government regulation. It's pretty straightforward – it directs states to take steps to stop TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funds from being used in liquor stores, casinos, and establishments where "performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment." It even makes exceptions for grocery stores that sell liquor or lottery tickets.

On one hand, I have no particular objection to reining in the welfare state. My personal feeling is if you're going to have a safety net, it should be temporary and only available to the truly needy. For example, if Rep. Boustany introduced legislation to cut back unemployment benefits from the current 99-week limit, he could make several defensible arguments for such a bill (e.g., it creates an incentive to stay out of the labor force for 99 weeks, which significantly harms one's employment prospects).

On the other hand, Rep. Boustany's bill is unserious on its face. Here he is explaining his silly little bill on Fox News last week. I'm embedding this video mostly because it features a clip of my personal Congressperson, Rep. Gwen Moore, at 2:12 doing something I don't think she's ever done before – make a good point.



"What stops people from going to Whole Foods and using the EBT card there [at an ATM] and then going to casino?" Moore asks. "It is just another effort to berate those people who are in the lower classes."

Well, that's a half a good point anyway – I don't believe a lot of lower class people are being berated by having to withdraw money from a grocery store ATM before spending it at a casino. But her point that Boustany's bill is obviously ineffectual can't be argued. If someone wants to spend their welfare benefit at a strip club, all the WIN Act does is make them stop at an approved ATM beforehand. How is that supposed to stop waste, fraud, and abuse?

Boustany replies by saying Moore is making a "bogus argument." If you're saying that about Moore, 99 times out of 100 you're going to be right. This is the one time you're not. There is nothing in Boustany's lousy bill that will stop anyone who wants to from spending the welfare money at a liquor store or casino. Nothing. And yet this Boustany character is going on about how it's important to make sure "the money gets into the children's hands and the hands of the needy families who depend on this…we don't want deadbeat dads going to strip clubs and spending this money."

To reiterate – there is nothing in Boustany's lame WIN bill that is going to stop a deadbeat dad from spending welfare funds in a strip club. The only way to stop someone from spending money irresponsibly is to not give them money in the first place. If Boustany wants to propose ending federal assistance altogether and leaving it up to individual states to create their own welfare programs, we can talk about that. But his WIN bill is crap.

Rather than rein in the welfare state properly, politicians prefer to use welfare recipients as lab rats in their silly social engineering experiments. For years New York City's mayor Nanny Bloomberg has been toying with the idea of prohibiting food stamp users from buying soda. And just last week, the state of Florida one-upped Boustany and Bloomberg by passing a bill to ban food stamp users from buying junk food:

Florida's poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator wants stopped. […]

The bill would also require the state to launch a culturally sensitive campaign to educate people about the benefits of a nutritious diet. Supporters say it would help recipients follow healthy eating habits and prevent taxpayer funds from being used to purchase luxury foods like bakery cakes when they can whip up a cheaper box mix.

"Most individuals using public assistance dollars are using the funds to get by and to provide for their families. However, we should do what we can to prevent dollars intended to help Florida's poorest families from being spent in the wrong places," [Sen. Ronda] Storms said in a statement.

Funny how people who claim to care about the poor and the needy are always blatantly condescending to the poor and the needy. Personally, I don't particularly care about the poor or the needy, but there's nothing to be gained by micromanaging how they spend their welfare benefits. Let the poor bastards have their comfort food. And like with Boustany's WIN bill, it's not like you can stop them from taking cash out of ATMs and using it to buy Doritos.

If you want to help welfare recipients, give them clear, simple boundaries. Give them a defined benefit, tell them they can spend it on whatever they want, but when it's gone, it's gone. That would enable them to plan how to use their temporary assistance without worrying about some finger-wagging busybody telling them they can't buy cookies or beer. If they can't manage that, they're beyond help. There are some things our elected representatives can't fix. What they could fix if they were serious is this $15 trillion debt. Maybe when Boustany's done wasting everyone's time with his pitiful WIN bill, he could get to work on that.

One of the problems with giving the government the power to try and fix everything is that everything becomes politicized—education, healthcare, home ownership, welfare, etc. Boustany's bill and Florida's proposed junk food ban are just the latest examples of what happens when government power grows unchecked. Instead of trying to simplify and reduce the welfare state, these jokers are trying to make it more complicated and tedious. As long as we're tinkering with the welfare state rather than making fundamental changes to the government's role in our lives, everybody loses.

Or maybe I should say, nobody WINs.