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Editorial
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Title: So that's what they mean by the “War on Poverty”
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... hats_what_they_mean_by_the.php
Published: Mar 18, 2011
Author: PZ Myers
Post Date: 2011-03-22 17:25:22 by CadetD
Keywords: cashless, society
Views: 1690
Comments: 91

Minnesota is leading the way. Our Rethuglicans have figured out how to end poverty: by making it illegal to have money if you're poor? Wait, that makes no sense.

Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month.

Lest you think our most contemptible lawmakers have no heart at all, consider that this is the generous version of their earlier plan.

This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

I'm not sure what they're thinking. If they're so poor, the only way they could have any money is if they stole it from a rich guy? Or something? Maybe they're just setting up a perfect Catch 22: now the police can roust someone who looks poor, and if they've got no money, send them to jail for vagrancy; if they've got more than $20, arrest them for possession of illegal currency.

Some people don't believe me. Here's the link to the proposed legislation. They want to give all benefits via a debit card so they can restrict and monitor purchases. And if this is their sole source of income, that means they're only allowed a cash allowance of $20/month. Control, control, control.

Section 1. [256.9870] ELECTRONIC BENEFIT TRANSFER DEBIT CARD. Subdivision 1. Electronic benefit transfer or EBT debit card. (a) Electronic benefit transfer (EBT) debit cardholders in the general assistance program and the Minnesota supplemental aid program under chapter 256D and programs under chapter 256J are prohibited from withdrawing cash from an automatic teller machine or receiving cash from vendors with the EBT debit card. The EBT debit card may only be used as a debit card. (b) Beginning July 1, 2011, cash benefits for programs listed under paragraph (a) must be issued on a separate EBT card with the head of household's name printed on the card. The card must also state that "It is unlawful to use this card to purchase tobacco products or alcoholic beverages." This card must be issued within 30 calendar days of an eligibility determination. During the initial 30 calendar days of eligibility, a recipient may have cash benefits issued on an EBT card without the recipient's name printed on the card. This card may be the same card on which food support is issued and does not need to meet the requirements of this section. (c) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), EBT cardholders may opt to have up to $20 per month accessible via automatic teller machine or receive up to $20 cash back from a vendor.

Click for Full Text!

Poster Comment:

http://wonkette.com/440932/minnesota-republicans-to-outlaw-poor-people-having-money; Link to legislation: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0171.1.html&session=ls87

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 89.

#2. To: CadetD (#0)

I get behind welfare recipients at the grocery store, their basket is filled with cuts of meat that I can't afford. They have candy, soft drinks, ice cream to the top of the basket. They pull out their "Lone Star" card and bingo!, it's on me. Then they set their cigarettes, beer and wine up and pull out cash to pay for that. All the time they are chatting on an IPhone that costs at least $300.00. I guess I don't really have a problem with what's being proposed. Welfare recipients should ONLY have access to healthy food, nothing else, and if they can afford beer, wine, cigarettes, etc, they can afford their own food.

Luke The Spook  posted on  2011-03-22   18:04:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Welfare recipients should ONLY have access to healthy food, nothing else, and if they can afford beer, wine, cigarettes, etc, they can afford their own food.

Then they should ALSO prohibit ALL food and drink which contains Aspartame, MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup, genetically modified corn and soy, artificial colors, artifical flavors, and preservatives.

If you want them to eat healthy, then at least eliminate the REAL poisons which are present on grocery store shelves.

Oh and BTW, MANY working families collect foodstamps, so don't think they're all "welfare recipients".

BTW, do you feel as strongly about this for oil companies who get billions of dollars in subsidies (ie. corporate welfare) and tax breaks each and every year? Should we restrict them to only making a $20 profit over cost each month?

FormerLurker  posted on  2011-03-22   20:00:30 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Oh and BTW, MANY working families collect foodstamps, so don't think they're all "welfare recipients".

Welfare, state sponsored welfare, should be eliminated. Period. That's the job of the churches, not the government. The churches are close to the population. They know who needs assistance, and who's looking for a free ride.

I do missionary work in Central America. Those people don't have welfare! They feed their families by working, whatever, where ever, whenever, however. Real work, HARD work. By comparison "Merikan welfare recipients are rich beyond belief!

Corporate welfare? There is no "To big to fail". Let the business compete. They don't make a profit, they go bankrupt.

Luke The Spook  posted on  2011-03-22   20:46:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Welfare, state sponsored welfare, should be eliminated. Period.

If ALL assisstance were cut off, what do people do, rob banks and mug people in order to feed their families? I'm not talking about the career welfare cases, I'm talking about those who have been laid off and can't find meaningful work that can provide enough income to support themselves and their families.

If it were eliminated altogether and the economic situation doesn't improve immediately, forcing people to starve and live in the street, there'd be widespread chaos, turmoil, and anarchy.

FormerLurker  posted on  2011-03-22   21:00:00 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

If it were eliminated altogether and the economic situation doesn't improve immediately, forcing people to starve and live in the street, there'd be widespread chaos, turmoil, and anarchy.

Exactly. And the really sick thing is employers are intentionally avoiding the long term unemployed for whatever strange reasoning.

Based on the numbers that are not fudged the overall unemployment rate is somewhere around 22%. In Oregon, where I live, it is closer to 25%. There are not even many minimum wage jobs, and places that would previously willing to hire someone with respiration, like Blockbuster, now are demanding experience for a minimum wage counter job.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-03-22   21:12:06 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Something for you to consider. This nation wasn't built on "having a job", it was built on creating a job, doing a job, not working for some multinational corporation. I have faith in the people in this country who want to work, not the parasites.

Blockbuster "demands"! Phucque'em!

Luke The Spook  posted on  2011-03-22   21:46:25 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Something for you to consider. This nation wasn't built on "having a job", it was built on creating a job, doing a job, not working for some multinational corporation. I have faith in the people in this country who want to work, not the parasites.

I do not disagree. However, how many of the small business licenses, taxes, restrictions, and zoning laws existed while this country was building?

No, it is not impossible for someone to start a business, but it takes a lot of knowledge of the bureaucracy and stupid laws to keep one alive.

I don't like welfare, I don't like forced hand-outs. I also don't like seeing people grubbing in garbage cans and children starving on the side of the road.

The laws we have now have been set up to FORCE people to work for someone else. To work for those multinationals. Except that now, like a sick game of musical chairs, the jobs have all been shipped out of the country - intentionally to set up this situation. A knee jerk reaction is not a solution.

I don't have an easy solution, politically, that is going to solve it. Ideally taxes would be cut to a tenth of what they now are and most of the stupid counterproductive rules and regulations done away with.

Realistically, do you honestly see a way to do that quickly so that we don't wind up with hundreds of thousands of children starving to death?

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-03-22   22:00:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Realistically, do you honestly see a way to do that quickly so that we don't wind up with hundreds of thousands of children starving to death?

What we have now doesn't work. It can't be sustained, economically or morally, and the planet can't sustain it. So. we suck it up and take the pain. It won't be easy, however, the longer it goes on, the worse it ultimately will be. Those who have the will to survive, will survive. They will find a way. Creative, imaginative humans will survive and prosper.

I really enjoyed Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Maybe it was prophetic. Perhaps that's the answer.

Luke The Spook  posted on  2011-03-22   22:24:55 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

I really enjoyed Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

A great book that goes over the heads of the leftist peebrains

Flintlock  posted on  2011-03-22   23:15:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Damn Straight! Ayn Rand - "All for Me and Me for Me". Unidimensional, limited vision, and a great saleswoman. While Capitalism has its virtues, and is much superior to socialism, it is not without flaw. And the type of tunnel vision of Ayn Rand appeals to a certain class of shallow thinker who does not look beyond their own personal advantage.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-03-22   23:26:51 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Ayn Rand - "All for Me and Me for Me".

Not at all! Ayn Rand admired competence above all else. The competent individual is usually able to take care of themselves and their dependents. They are not a burden on society, and she believed that such individuals should not be burdened by those who are incompetent and can't or won't take care of themselves. She particularly despised people who got into responsible positions because they knew someone in the bureaucracy and then screwed everything up because they didn't have a clue.

She believed there would be no need for welfare if people were taking care of their own problems and their own burdens. She called this The Virtue of Selfishness.

angK  posted on  2011-03-22   23:54:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Not at all! Ayn Rand admired competence above all else.

And what system or person admires incomeptence?

None.

Your statement is close to being meaningless.

tom007  posted on  2011-03-23   23:14:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

And what system or person admires incomeptence?

That's easy. The Gov'ts of the Western World. All of them!

angK  posted on  2011-03-23   23:36:38 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

With the exception of one misguided soul, the other Rand bashers on this thread are Obama voting/supporting leftists...why bother?

Flintlock  posted on  2011-03-24   0:01:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

With the exception of one misguided soul, the other Rand bashers on this thread are Obama voting/supporting leftists...why bother?

I don't think of myself as a "Rand Basher" I just am not so enamored of her philosophy that I disregard the weak points. She was a brilliant woman, but like too many in our culture, IMHO, too steeped in materialism. Societies are composed of individuals, but societies, and cultures, are groups of people, and all of those groups combined comprise humanity in all of its kaleidoscopic wonder.

My criticism of the Randian view is simply predicated on the fact that we individuals do not exist in isolation from each other. There is nothing wrong with pursuing one's own interests and survival. There is nothing wrong with expecting people to be responsible for their own welfare. What I object to is the fetishism of extreme individualism to the exclusion of consideration for others. If we had a sane government, and economic system that was not foully corrupted then I would likely gravitate closer to that viewpoint, but I also have this odd quirk of looking at the way things are not the way I think they ought to be.

There is nothing wrong, and much right, in working toward an ideal scene. However, it is an ideal scene not the existing scene. First priorities are to clean out the corruption and establish a sane government not starving millions to death because we want to pretend that the ideal scene will magically appear if we do.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-03-24   1:14:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

great post.Although your reference to 'starving millions to death' sounds like an absurd exageration,i remembered reading that some 30 or 40 million murikans are on 'food stamps' now; a shocking number which begs the ?,who'd buy their groceries otherwise

Artisan  posted on  2011-03-24   5:23:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

great post.Although your reference to 'starving millions to death' sounds like an absurd exageration,i remembered reading that some 30 or 40 million murikans are on 'food stamps' now; a shocking number which begs the ?,who'd buy their groceries otherwise

Thanks. No, I did mean millions. One Russian historian, whose name eludes me at the moment, who did a study on the numbers who actually starved to death during the Great Depression puts the number who starved to death at around 7 million. At that time a majority of the citizenry still lived in small towns and on farms and grew a lot more of their own food.

So, just extrapolating from current conditions, and assuming a cut off of all social service programs, with the real unemployment rate running at 22 to 25 percent and an estimated 43 million Americans currently receiving food assistance the scene would be one of utter chaos. With no means to earn a living, living in an urban setting with no means to obtain food or shelter, you would have tens of millions of people nationwide thrown out with no means of survival other than theft and robbery, and that is what you would get. The strong and brutal would survive and the weakest (children, the elderly, and the infirm) would die. The death toll could very rapidly reach into the millions. It is not a pleasant scenario to contemplate but is the most likely outcome.

The system of Government provided social welfare has been an unmitigated disaster for the free people of this country. It has not only fostered a system of permanent dependency it has robbed people of the dignity or earning their own way. However, in our current corrupt system the solution is not punishing the weak but first taking care of the people who have created this situation and then, and only then, transitioning away from the system of created dependency - which has been purely intentional. It has taken generations to get here and it will take at least 2 generations to eliminate it without major social disruption and unnecessary suffering.

Just as the first "Great Depression" was engineered by the Banksters so has been the current one. The last depression allowed the first entry of major government social programs and the current one has been used to enter more. All the while the fatted psychotic pigs of the Bankster system have continued to bloat under the blood, death, and havoc they have created. I am not understating my case when I call them, and name them, psychotic. To really flesh out and illustrate all of the distortions in the social fabric, and economic, would take me hours I don't have right now.

However, the entire corporate system, and preference in law for it, is one of those distortions. As well has been the war against small independent business - and it is a war. Small independent farmers and business people do not fit into the "Collective" of the proletariat.

You can see what the Bolshevik solution was in the Ukraine. Depending upon whose numbers you use at the low end 8 million died and the high end is around 11 million. It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure. In the U.S. a different, slower, approach has been used by slowly tightening the noose of ever increasing taxes and regulatory burdens making it difficult at best to operate a business. In the Klamath Basin in Oregon and California outright force was used under the pretext of endangered species to cut off the water the small farms needed to grow their crops and survive. Many were driven off the farm and into penury.

When people talk about ending the system which we do not like they usually think of it in ideal terms and not reality. Personally, I prefer reality.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-03-24   12:58:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#90. To: Original_Intent (#89)

Depending upon whose numbers you use at the low end 8 million died and the high end is around 11 million. It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure.

Yep, not enough shovels, and I guess that bones will decay to tilth in wet soil in a couple of decades.

tom007  posted on  2011-03-24 18:48:06 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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