I’m glad the FSA are enjoying themselves. It seems they are using their EBT/SNAP cards at strip clubs. The government is aware, but they’re doing nothing about it. JPM gets their cut, no matter where the card is used, so don’t expect the abuse to stop anytime soon.
On The Dole And Watching The Pole: The New Normal EBT-Card User
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2013
Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip club – where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a NY Post investigation found. From Bronx strip clubs to gay dive bars in the East Village, US taxpayer-sponsored EBT cards have been inserted into ATMs and food stamp ‘cash’ has presumably been used to feed another need. The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed – and presumably spent.
We should not worry too much though as Hilda Solis put us straight on how many millions of jobs these EBT-card fund recipients are creating and while we pass no judgment on those receiving and using the funds in whatever they see most fit, Cato’s Michael Tanner summed it quite succinctly: “This is morally scandalous, I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this.” 32oz sodas made us gulp; rare steak tough to swallow; but take away the strippers and liquor – anarchy.
Via NY Post:
They’re on the dole — and watching the pole.
Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip clubs — where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a Post investigation found.
A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.
The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which oversees the “cash assistance program,” even lists some of these welfare-ready ATMs on its Web site.
One EBT machine is stationed inside Club Eleven, an infamous Hunts Point jiggle joint known as much for its violent history as its girls in pink thongs.
Cops have been cracking down on the Bronx club since 2009 and shut it down temporarily in 2010. In July, five men were stabbed and two others shot outside after bouncers broke up a 4 a.m. brawl with pepper spray. The club appeared to be shuttered when The Post visited Thursday.
Club Heat, another Bronx strip club that dispenses EBT cash, is also no stranger to violence. A 33-year-old woman was fatally shot in the head outside the club in December 2011.
Critics blasted the government for turning a blind eye to welfare’s sleazy money.
“This is morally scandalous,” said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this.”
Welfare recipients receive food stamps and cash assistance under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Both benefits are accessed through an EBT card, but only cash assistance — meant for housing, utilities and household necessities — can be accessed at ATMs.
A single-person household could receive a maximum $200 in monthly food stamps plus $158 in cash assistance. A family of four could get as much as $668 in food stamps and $433 in cash.
The food-stamp program prohibits the purchase of booze, tobacco and lottery tickets with an EBT card. But with the cash-assistance program, users can blow money on strippers or a six-pack and to tap welfare dollars from liquor stores, casinos and adult-oriented establishments.
The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed — and presumably spent.
The Boiler Room, a gay dive bar in the East Village, had $120 and $60 transactions a minute apart on Jan. 17, 2011. The bar is around the corner from a Bank of America that takes EBT cards.
West Village tobacco shop Shisha International had EBT transactions ranging from $40 to $180 in 2011. The store is near at least two EBT-friendly ATMs.
Legislative efforts to crack down on sinful spending have fallen short.
State Sen. Tom Libous (R-Binghamton) passed a bill in his chamber in June that would outlaw welfare withdrawals at gambling dens, strip clubs and other venues of vice, but the measure is gathering dust in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.
Libous is looking for a new Assembly sponsor to carry the bill in that house in the upcoming legislative session, after past sponsor George Latimer (D-Rye) was elected to the state Senate.
With only one of the city’s Assembly members, Nicole Malliotakis (R-B’klyn./SI), as a co-sponsor, the bill faces an uphill battle.
The Assembly typically doesn’t support welfare reform, because its more liberal members think the measures “hurt the poor,” Libous said. If the bill remains stalled, the state stands to lose $120 million in federal welfare funding.
The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, signed by President Obama last February, requires states to prohibit sinful welfare spending by 2014. If they don’t, they’ll forfeit federal cash.
“The people who are stealing from the program are the ones I want to go after,” Libous said. “Not someone who lost his job or a single mom who has to feed her kids. That’s what this program is supposed to be for.”
A spokesman with the US Department of Health and Human Services said states make their own rules on EBT cards.
Some states already limit where EBT cards can withdraw money.
A rep from OTDA, New York’s welfare office, said the state does not choose or regulate which retailers get ATMs that handle EBTs. Instead, retailers decide whether to use an ATM that accepts welfare cards.
Eddie says:
Your tax dollars at work, kick-starting the economy. Yeah, right.
At least the money is going to those deserving young ladies working their way through college. LOL.
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6th January 2013 at 2:57 pm
AWD says:
I have no doubt that there are tens of thousands of pole dancers and strippers that are also getting welfare. The don’t report their earning (paid in cash-dollar bills) so get maximum welfare/SNAP and EBT benefits. The question remains: what do strippers use THEIR EBT/SNAP benefits for?
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6th January 2013 at 3:11 pm
AWD says:
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6th January 2013 at 3:11 pm
Stucky says:
The government approves Strip Club EBT purchases because they believe Eating Pussy is a food transaction. High in protein, too!
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6th January 2013 at 3:18 pm
AWD says:
FSA thoughts of the day:
• How do I sign a check on the front?
• Why stop at Gun Free Zones? We should also create Crime Free Zones!
• I voted for Change, so how come things are still the same?
• The National Socialist Party had nothing to do with Socialism, right?
• We have weekends off, thanks to unions. If enough people join unions,
we can get the other five days off.
• My body is my business, but so is what other people earn.
• I don’t care what the Bill Of Rights is, as long as someone’s footing the bill.
• Why read the Constitution when you can watch the Daily Show?
• Voting “D” = free stuff. Voting “R”= bummer, I’ll have to work.
• I read in Cosmo that Republicans want to ban sex. It’s totally true.
• We keep voting democrat, but we’re STILL poor.
• The First lady is like Kim Kardashian, except with other people’s money.
• Someday I’ll live in my OWN basement.
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6th January 2013 at 3:26 pm
JIMSKI says:
Hey back off you judgy judgementals! How many rapes have been prevented cause Paul the Perve got his rocks off during a lap dance. How many liquer stores were NOT robbed cause AL CAHAULIC could actually buy a bottle of boonesfarm.
I think we needto just take the whole fucking thing to it’s logical conclusion. Direct shipment of crack. Heroin,pot,hash,upps,downs directly via usps. Walmart gift cards for electronics and shit no one really needs. Nationalize sat TV and make it free.
There i just solved every last problem we face. If everything is free crime will disappear. The post office willbe humming with business and walmart could hire more.
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6th January 2013 at 3:46 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Now all you guys stop hatin’ on the poor folks. They DESERVE to have their fun just like the working stiffs! How can you be sooooo mean to them?
I mean, between traveling around in Dem/union buses to vote multiple times for Obama in 2012 and being full-time and taxpayer supported baby mommas and daddies is damn hard work. So is all that cable teevee watching on their 52 inch plasma screens, then there is excruciatingly hard work of all that remote control, Wi, XBOX and PS3 usage.
I left out all the trauma of eating all that fast food.
Folks just need a little, ya know, relaxation.
After all, when you look at it, using the EBT cards to buy tobacco and alcohol just increases excise taxes back to the fed.gov – so it might even be a net positive cash flow and good for the taxplayer.
And, drum roll please, using EBT cards for pole dancers and massage therapists must be the ULTIMATE economic STIMULUS!!!!
You guys need to get your heads, ahem, straight in the New Obama Era.
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6th January 2013 at 4:52 pm
Novista says:
Libous — I propose a new sin tax. On congresscritters. Insider trading, bribes, not representing their constituency, violating the oath of office, just for openers. That could pay off the national debt on its own.
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6th January 2013 at 7:01 pm
Leobeer says:
This video is hilarious. Judge Judy has someone on the dole in her court.
Watch for the surprise conclusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DL-a-r7iJIU
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6th January 2013 at 2:03 am
ragman says:
This should come as no surprise to anyone. Govt at all levels is fraught with theft, graft, corruption, fraud, &tc. Take from the employed and give to the FSA to spend on this kinda shit.
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6th January 2013 at 8:49 am
Sweet charity: Welfare recipients cash out at liquor stores and strip clubs « Fabulous & Money Savvy™ says:
[...] On the Dole, Watching the Pole (theburningplatform.com) [...]
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6th January 2013 at 11:31 am