Californis welfare recipients using their debit cards
 

...at the Casino's to the tune of multi millions of dollars. The administration said they are going to fix this problem since it has been brought to the forefront.

State issued debit cards.

dayumn, a scam every time:2 cents:

doesn't california get a % of casino earnings? if they blow their money on useless shit and have nothing left for real stuff like food..isn't that their own problem?

Just cancel the welfare for anyone who's card has been doing this.

Anyone who can afford to waste it gambling doesn't need it.

No...it is the problem of their children...that is why they recieve welfare in the first place. At one point in time Calironia did not receive taxes from the Casino's but they were trying to pass legislation to tax the Casino's...and the Indians were fighting against it...I do not know if the legislation passed or not.

Baddog probably knows if it did or not.

The welfare is provided because of the children the recipients have...so it is not that simple.

perhaps their children should be taken away. if gambling is more important than feeding them there are obviously other problems as well.

You can still get assistance if you don't have children. At least in NYS you can.

Perhaps they should be...but that is usually done as a last resort...but maybe if it were to be a first resort the parents would have a learning experience.

I am not sure...but I think in certain circumstances you can in California...but in some states you cannot.

There are a lot of children that should probably be taken away from their parents... the problem is we have nowhere to put them once we take them away.

qft... We don't even have enough people in the US to adopt all the kids ALREADY parent-less...

while an issue, i don't see it as a big one-

California welfare recipients withdrew $1.8 million at casino ATMs over eight months
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issues an executive order requiring recipients to promise they will use cash benefits only to meet basic subsistence needs. GOP legislators call for the cash to be returned.

Casino withdrawals, which represented far less than 1% of total welfare spending during the eight months for which the department released data, averaged just over $227,392 a month.

it's the hobby of primates to harass and hurt those lower in the pecking order.

That is over an eight month period but I believe a study was done that goes back further than 8 months and it was like four or five million which is still a drop in the bucket...but does still hurt the children whose parents are involved in gambling...and it needs to be fixed where they cannot use their debit cards at a Casino.

Welfare has little do with "kids" - except for the fact that if your on welfare AND have kids, you get MORE welfare money... to blow at casinos.

Sorry, welfare needs to end. It started off as something to help people get back on their feet, but was never meant to be a full time thing. Now we have entire families raised on welfare who fail to understand the concept of getting a job and earning money. Instead they live in section 8 government housing, receive welfare, and use the school system to babysit their kids.

i don't disagree it needs to be fixed, i just hope the cali gov spends the appropriate amount of time/energy/resources on it. they need to focus on much larger issues. :)

Isn't misappropriation of funds a federal offense? Hell, most of 'em will be in jail anyway. Might as well get them acclimated to the bars at a young age.

If I rember correctly...during President Clinton's administration...laws were passed that was supposed to put a five year lifetime cap on receiving welfare. Is that not the case?

Well...in some states...if not all states...those without children can only recieve aid if there are special circumstances...so it is primarily designed for protection of children.

Same with unemployment!
Was to get people back on their feet.
Get paid while LOOKING for a job!
I know several people on a Year long Vacation!

Whats new? They also use them to buy cigs and booze. While in college my fiancee worked in a coner store and would see this shit all the time. People on welfare would come in and buy a box of mac and cheese for their kids for dinner and a six pack and name brand cigs for them. Using food stamp card for the food and their state issued debit card for the beer and booze.

your judgement is fast you cut benefits. then the crime rate go's up and u send it to more police and money to house them in jail plus foster care for their kids. :helpme

What really pisses me off about the whole welfare thing is you see these people that have food stamps taniff and wick and they have 4 or 5 kids, they buy their shit and when they get to their car/truck there car/truck is brand fucking new and better then anything I have! Another thing is you see these people go into 7-11 buy their kids slurpees and a ton of junk food then while you wait in line they take out their food stamp card to pay for everything! GRrrr *shrugs*

Exactly!!!!

I know this married couple that posted on FB, they are tired of waiting on BOTH of thier unemployment checks, and welfare, they are wanting to take a Road Trip to Texas.

SAD!

Who cares what they spend it on. Jesus, why do people have to micro-manage every aspect of another person's life? What's next? Micro-manage what old people do with their social security?

Becasue we have to pay for it!!!

Yeah, so? So is everyone else. You're also paying for a lot of other stuff too. You're paying for Medicare too, you wanna review the individual medical files before they get benefits?

it seems like a contest with some people. a guy on the radio said he saw a guy buying sushi with his food card. nosey fuckers! :disgust

In my state, general assistance(welfare) can be drawn for one year. After one year, you have to be holding a job or spend 8 hours a day looking for work, to draw benefits. Usually a decent job puts their earnings up high enough that they don't get cash assistance.
Depending on how many children are in the household, they still can draw Aid to Dependent Children. It comes on a debit card, and can only be used at licensed sites that agree that cigs, alcohol or lottery cannot be purchased with the card.
They can still get food stamps and childcare assistance, as long as they don't exceed the income limits.

You sure like your apples and oranges!!!

Yep, and I complain about paying for other things also!

Lets put it like this, I work hard, so others can Play hard, NO!

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Virtually ALL of welfare is fraudulent. There are so many scams it would make your head spin.

Now this sounds good. I think they should also be drug testing these people as well because many of them are pissing it away on crack and heroin :2 cents:

I've paid Child Support consistently without fail every single month since 1984. (and still am) I pay this 100% myself with no other taxpayer help. I have yet to be able to contribute one word about how that money is spent. So I don't think the general public really gets any say in how welfare families spend their money.. if they're allowed to spend it on cigs and booze and casinos, then that's up to them. Can't sleep at night because of it? Then get the law changed. :2 cents:

What state?

There is a limit here, you can also go to school, but that is just a crock, most get all this money for school, and never go. They should have to pay it back.

They lose personal benifits after the 1 year, but still get cash and TONS of food stamps for the Children. Most food stamps are sold for Cash, that is used for drugs and cigs and things. .50 Cents on the Dollar!
We do not have an regulations on who accepts the cash or food stamp here (Kansas)

I was in Missouri, seen a sign that said
If you want to buy a Pizza, you must order the pizza, pay with your food stamps, hand the pizza back and we will cook it.

That shit don't outrage you? I guess I let that shit get to me cause I always worked hard for what I got and NEVER took a fucking handout or sat on my ass. I would should shovel fish guts and shit for 16 hours a day before i would take a hand out.

actually most of them would probably be happy, as it would give them more time to gamble, and then when they've run out of funds, steal something then sell it, and gamble again.

I think the problem is gambling, not having kids.

Same here, I pay double what I should, for child support, I do not complain what she spends it on, BUT I also make it known I am not GIVING another dime, don't play the " the child needs this" crap, you should of got that with the child support, not Bingo!

Why did I choose to complain on this board? Because I can, and I think it helps bring this huge problem to light. You can see I also was talking about unemployment as well!

Exactly,
I have not taken a handout, I could of easily frauded the Gov, when I was let go from my fulltime job, and started websites. Double Dip, but I didn't

I have donated Plasma to be able to shop at Aldis to get food for my kids as a single dad, back in the day.

So yeah, sucks to see the welfare mom with X amount of kids buying Steaks, Lobster, LOTS of Junk food, push the cart out to a NICE car, with a BF who makes bank sitting in it.

Not at all. Why should it bother me that some person I don't know decides to blow their assistance on gambling or booze? We have assistance (welfare) to help people that need it. At least that's the idea. But you can't pin someone down and force feed them broccoli while handing them job leads.... it's just never going to happen. Some people will blow it on booze or drugs, and that's just the way it is.
I've never collected welfare, but I've been dead broke and homeless before (a very long time ago), and taken home boxes of crap from the Food Bank. And when I had $2.00 bucks left to my name and nothing else, I had to decide if I wanted to get a 12-pack of Kingsbury Brew, or a pack of cheap smokes. I chose the smokes. So I've been there. When you're all the way down as far as you can go, sometimes buying food just isn't important (in the mind).

they just try to get luck on that way, poor people

Just for the record, I'm neither for or against cutting off welfare. If a proposal was introduced to eliminate it, I'd go along with that. But I think the trade off would be an increase in crime and homelessness. If that's an acceptable trade-off, sure... cut that shit off man. On the other hand, if such a proposal was never introduced, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it either.

i think alot of people have an over-exagerated view of what welfare recepients get. Who cares if a few welfare people spend their pittance at a casino.

We give away much much more money to Israel, and they use the money to buy bullets to kill people with.

I also think people confuse what welfare is really for. Welfare is to keep lazy people from being criminals and to keep our society somewhat civilized. Its a very small price to pay.

They are debit cards you can track where every purchase is made, seems like a pretty simple thing to start banning people from public assistance that abuse it. Bring criminal charges against them as well.

what crime :1orglaugh

Not being a good poor person?

There's also a very real possibility a goodly portion of these withdrawals were from tribal members who are on welfare and work at the casinos. Easier than going to a bank to use the card to get cash.

It gets people pissed off thinking tax dollars are going to gambling, but without facts and figures everyone is jumping to this conclusion. It may not at all be the case.

Think instead of all the retirees using their social security or disability to buy lottery tickets. Perfectly legal. Sure, they paid into the social security fund, but for most their benefits now are WELL OVER what they contributed, and the balance is funded by those of us currently working. Be pissed at this instead, because it's much more common. And there's NO way to stop it.

Stolen/cloned debit cards could be a factor.

I don't recall but that sounds like a brilliant fucking idea.

Better yet, they can get welfare or one year and then after that they have to wait a year to get it again. Then they have a cap of five years total.

Sorry, if I lost my job and my house I'd be moving in with family long before I'd be fucking moving into some section 8 housing crap ghetto.

That's another can of worms. Why we give money to Israel is beyond me; Why we give money / aid / support of any kind to North Korea, Iran, or any other country, friend or foe, boggles my mind.