Just another couple of examples......Follow

If you're not going to make even the slightest effort, I'm not either.

Not to mention Florida is like the Elephant's Graveyard for old people. Just can't catch a break.

And shaped like a *****.

Well, for the California thing, it's pretty simple. A few years ago, California expanded its food stamp program to allow for a credit card like system. The thinking was that this would reduce the stigma of paying for food with stamps of some kind. I think about a year ago, it was revealed that the credit card system was basically just a debit account with a declining balance. It had no checks in it for what could be purchased, meaning you could buy chips in a Vegas casino or alcohol or tobacco or basically anything at all. They close the loophole for vacations, but haven't yet closed it for alcohol and tobacco, despite the fact that some of that funding comes from federal dollars and it's a violation of federal regulations for that money to be spent on such things.

So the Republicans introduced a bill to close the loophole, but the Democratic majority shot it down. Well, you're probably thinking there must be some kind of poison pill in the bill, since this should be a no-brainer, right? Wrong:



That is the entirety of the proposed legal change. No poison pills. No obtuse wording. No unforseen side effects. Just a straight clean bill to prevent the ebt cards from being used to purchase products which the existing food stamp program already prohibits. But apparently, the Dems don't want poor people going on vacations, but they do want them smoking and drinking.


Way to go Dems!

You can read the actual senate analysis of the bill here. The bill never made it out of committee (a fact the "article" neglects to mention, making it sound as though it was voted on by the full assembly).

At least part of the argument against it was that it placed a burden upon the vendor to not accept the card since the system isn't designed to electronically deny items. Accepting the card (intentionally or otherwise) could result in a "stiff penalty". It also discusses how disabling the card for ATMs in those locations is a manual process of identifying and entering ATM codes and can wind up shutting users from their local ATM just because it's in a location deemed unsuitable.

I don't know and don't care how significant these reasons are but I'll admit they don't sound as good in an opinion column as "Democrats want people to buy alcohol with tax money!!"

Except during spring break.

I didn't get a cape! Grrrr!

Are you kidding? The "argument for the opposition" states the following:



It was killed (yes, in committee. What of it?) by lobbyists. Or is anyone mistaking where that opposition comes from? It's like they just wrote a generic boilerplate opposition and all the Dems in the committee voted to kill the bill. Which is almost certainly exactly what happened.

Gotta love this one: "The Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations believes there is no evidence that EBT cards are being used to buy alcohol or tobacco". Hahahahahahaha <breathe> hahahahahaha!


Vendors are already responsible for separating food stamp purchases (or WIC, or whatever the hell they're calling it). It would be no more of a burden for them to program their POS systems to flag non-qualifying ebt items, and not allow them to be included in an ebt card purchase. It would be trivially easy relative to the work they already did to incorporate the various stamps and cards into effect in the first place. This is opposition for the sake of opposition and nothing more. They want to buy political points for "supporting the rights of the poor", no matter how silly and absurd it really is.




Honestly? Looking at the details makes the Dems look worse. How far into a special interest's pocket do you have to be to be influenced to vote against that bill by that opposition statement? Be honest now.

You meant to say "States the following (in part)". Next time you cherry-pick only the parts that suit your argument, be honest about it. There's a reason I linked to the entire thing.

Ok. And there are two sections at the end, one titled "arguments in support", and the other titled "arguments in opposition". I quoted the entirety of the latter section. The entire rest of the words on the link you presented come from the "author" of the bill, who also writes the section in the "arguments for support" and are generally positive towards the bill (duh!). Thus, the *only* section of that link which comes from opponents of the bill was the section I quoted.

WTF?