What the government is doing with your tax money

Michael Walsh:

The economy grew at an anemic 1.5 percent rate last month, unemployment remains over 8 percent and some economists are now predicting a double-dip recession — but don’t worry. In Colorado, you can still buy a lap dance with your food-stamp card.

In California, you can head over the border to Las Vegas, and withdraw some gaming cash before hitting the slots.

A tenth of those getting public assistance in New Hampshire don’t even live in the state.

Is this a great country or what?

We know all this thanks to the magic of the EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card, a government-issued debit card, designed to support recipients who can’t afford basic necessities, like food, shelter and clothing. Funded mostly by the feds, but administered by state and local jurisdictions, the EBT card has replaced the old food stamps, thus removing the “stigma” of paying for groceries with government coupons.

Tracing EBT transactions has also exposed fraud by bureaucrats whose job it is to supervise such transfer programs. In Indiana, a state employee faces charges she issued EBT cards to fictitious recipients, then took some $250,000 and blew it at a riverboat casino.

In Wisconsin, nine county workers were recently busted for running a fraud ring that stole nearly $300,000 from taxpayers.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy in March sacked some 27 bureaucrats for falsifying their financial information when they applied for emergency benefits after a tropical storm last summer. In all, some 1,053 Nutmeg State employees applied for benefits, double-dipping the taxpayers from the safety of their sinecures.

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There is more.

I have also seen stories of lottery tickets  being purchased with these cards.  I guess it is just their way of "giving back."

It makes you wonder why Democrats are so reluctant to put restrictions on the use of these cards.