Welfare recipients take out cash at strip clubs, liquor stores and X-rated shops

Is this liberal compassion? Is this the purpose of the programs? Let's see the liberals on here defend this Obamanation of well-meaning programs being abused by the recipients.

Why is it ok to force me to provide money to people to gamble, go to strip clubs and buy booze? This is insane. No wonder Obama won re-election. Free money to spend at strip clubs.

Here's the article:

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.

Who the hell is minding the store? Now watch, the usual suspects will call me heartless and cruel. Fuckem.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/p...nvj2RwpsEDS7MN

Been going on for years.where you been? Oh right the Wichita bunker.

I have a good idea for those fuckers, get caught doing that shit, and lose your fucking welfare, and food stamps, take away their damn odumbo phones also..... FUCK EM.... lazy ass bastards.....

Been going on for years.where you been? Oh right the Wichita bunker. Originally Posted by i'va biggen

Does that make it ok, then, Eva? Do you think it is ok?

"Dozens" of transactions? Out of 200,000,000? That doesn't sound like too pervasive of a problem.

As usual, you are an idiot COG and this is a silly post about a ridiculous news story.

Does that make it ok, then, Eva? Do you think it is ok? Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

This has been true far longer than Obama has been in office. Critisize the whole cash aspect and I'd agree with you. All of a sudden wake up now--when it was no different under Bush or before him--and it comes across as tainted commentary.

So they should remove all the ATMs for places you don't agree with? Are you now the ATM Nazi? Or maybe you think if they are removed from these places people wouldn't just withdraw the money from 2 blocks away?

If you argue that assistance should be similar to food stamps--with limits on how it can be spent--I have little to argue with. But if you allow the dispensing of cash anywhere, I would expect you to be one of the staunchest proponents of government not watching over the shoulder of how someone spends their money.

This is exactly the kind of behaviour which that french economist you don;t like has been studying.

She cites the case of a man (I forget where) who is very poor, family can't eat, but he buys a television. He's been saving for it for 6 months.

I don't know what solution she offers in these kinds of cases.

People can do with their own money whatever they want. If they are receiving welfare, there should be limits. I don't care where ATMs are, but the program needs to be rethought, and limits imposed.

And I may be sheltered, but this is first I've heard of this. If it was going on during the Bush Adm., it should have been fixed then. No taxpayer should be funding this.

I think permitting ATMS in such locations is a state issue.....feds have nothing to do with it......

But make NO mistake; Obama would approve of letting welfare recipients have ATM access in places that most reasonable people would say no to......

This article is in NY State; there was a recent similar story about ATMS in casinos and strip clubs in California;

Funny how this happens in liberal dominated states....those fuckers don't care how taxpayer money is spent...they are foolish with our money.

I think permitting ATMS in such locations is a state issue.....feds have nothing to do with it......

But make NO mistake; Obama would approve of letting welfare recipients have ATM access in places that most reasonable people would say no to......

This article is in NY State; there was a recent similar story about ATMS in casinos and strip clubs in California;

Funny how this happens in liberal dominated states....those fuckers don't care how taxpayer money is spent...they are foolish with our money. Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Another absurd comment by you, but it's about what I suspect. Was in a strip club in TX last month (the lady I was with wanted to go). Three ATMs sitting there. Same was true last SC I went to in Louisianna.

And it's so nice of you to decide who can have access to ATMs, and where. Because we ALL know that the only folks who use ATMs are illegal welfare cheats, right? Or do you support hiering peole to stand near the ATM and ask people if they are on welfare?

People can do with their own money whatever they want. If they are receiving welfare, there should be limits. I don't care where ATMs are, but the program needs to be rethought, and limits imposed.

And I may be sheltered, but this is first I've heard of this. If it was going on during the Bush Adm., it should have been fixed then. No taxpayer should be funding this. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

I agree with you about rethinking and imposing restrictions/limits. Debit cards loaded with the appropriate amount that can only be used in supermarkets, etc., is how some places are dealing with it. That isn't foolproof, but it cuts down on misuse.

I don't think welfare issued credit/debit cards are accepted at ATMS in Texas strip clubs and other similar locations.


They were in California and New York - liberal assholes who waste our tax dollars.

This is exactly the kind of behaviour which that french economist you don;t like has been studying.

She cites the case of a man (I forget where) who is very poor, family can't eat, but he buys a television. He's been saving for it for 6 months.

I don't know what solution she offers in these kinds of cases. Originally Posted by essence

I guess in the "free" and "libertarian" society Trendaway and the Teawipes as well as COsFb envision, this person and others (who are abviously as ate up with the dumbass as the Faux Noise swallowers) should be sent to debtors' prison or some such "final soultion." You know, like Georgia.

I agree with you about rethinking and imposing restrictions/limits. Debit cards loaded with the appropriate amount that can only be used in supermarkets, etc., is how some places are dealing with it. That isn't foolproof, but it cuts down on misuse. Originally Posted by Old-T

You may or may not remember when local branches of some states' welfare offices handed out commodities (food and a few other staples) before they went with the cards. Almost around the corner, and down the street for sure, were the good "solid citizens" exchanging cash for those commodities. As long as there are fools like Trendaway and the Teawipes, and their road manager COsFb, there will be corruption of any system. You know, kinda like Trendaway's plaintive please for someone to help him defraud his insurance company over some "storm" damage.

Does that make it ok, then, Eva? Do you think it is ok? Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Did you see anywhere I said it was ok or you just putting words in my mouth? You act like this is a revelation that you have found that is perpetrated by Obama.