More GOP class warfare against the poor

[Rudeboyelvis]

How, pray tell, can these magic cards your talking about (regardless of whatever 4 letter acronym you say a state can choose to assign to it) discriminate against how the money distributed from them is used???

Do they have ATM's in the rental office that only lets you give the money to the landloard?

Do they have ATM's at the electric company that only let you pay your electric bill??

Of course not. The funds are distributed from a EBT card AS CASH. Period.



The argument, if you read the article, is that these poor folk don't live near banks, but they live near tittie bars and liquor stores that just so happen to have ATM's in them, and the House wants to pass a bill that calls bullsh.it on that notion.

They are still going to be able to buy booze and check out titties instead of paying their bills if they choose - it's just going to be a little more inconvenient.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

How, pray tell, can these magic cards your talking about (regardless of whatever 4 letter acronym you say a state can choose to assign to it) discriminate against how the money distributed from them is used???

Of course not. The funds are distributed from a EBT card AS CASH. Period.

No. There are two programs: SNAP (food stamps) and TANF (welfare).

If you are getting only "food stamps", money is put on that debit card, and you can only use it to buy food: if you try and use it in an ATM, won't work. Try to use it at McDonalds, won't work. At the pharmacy to buy your meds, won't work. No cash on the SNAP food stamp card.

If you are at the grocery store and buy lettuce, oatmeal and soap, the card will only accept the charges for the lettuce and oatmeal, and kick out the soap. This is easy, because of the bar code system on all items nowadays - certain bar codes are entered in the EBT system so that the cards will only pay for certain foods, and you cannot buy liquor, meds, soap, etc.

The TANF "welfare" cards can be used to get cash off the card, at ATM's, and can be used as a regular debit card (as your referenced site shows) to pay for non-food items like heating, water, etc.

If you are receiving both welfare and food assistance, as your site mentioned, you swipe you card, the food is deducted from your SNAP benefits, then you reswipe for the TANF benefits to pay for the soap.

So, my point about the advantage of having debit cards, over sending checks, is this: they can, at least, do for the TANF cards as they do with the SNAP program: enter the bar codes for liquor, dildoes, certain store names, etc. into the system to try and make it more difficult to use TANF benefits for non-welfare items. Maybe limit benefits only to home state.

Although I doubt the overall national level of abuse, for people with children that are so poor they need help to get rent and heat and water, is very high. Although this "problem" appears to be more important than creating jobs right now, for our House of Representatives.