The EBT President

Joanne writes:

I've attached two receipts someone gave me within the last month.

The short hand "MRBL SHT CKE" is for a decorated marble sheet cake that costs $46.99.

In both cases, each were paid with food stamps or EBT cards as they are known today.

That's right, two different people, supposedly down on their luck, paid for birthday cakes with your money. Did they get box of Betty Crocker cake mix, a container of frosting, and some eggs for less than $5 and make their own cake?

Nope! Instead, they billed a premium -- some would say non-essential -- party item to the taxpayer. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

With scanners and UPC's, items like this could easily be excluded from purchase under the EBT program. Yet, in essence, our government is subsiding the lifestyles of those on welfare.

It's like what Texas Senatorial candidate Ted Cruz said earlier today:

Right now, we’re engaged in a national debate over big government solutions versus individual responsibility and I think this issue powerfully illustrates the different approaches between President Obama and Governor Romney.

In my view, there are three critical failings behind President Obama’s new policy on welfare. Number one, it’s fiscally irresponsible. At a time when our nation has sixteen trillion dollars in national debt, the idea that this president would eliminate one of the key requirements that reduced the welfare caseload and reduced federal government spending makes no sense.


Number two, it is yet another action of executive arrogance by this president—President Obama, if he disagreed with requiring welfare recipients to work or to seek work. He could have gone to Congress. He could have proposed new legislation. He could have tried to make the case to the American people. But he did not do that. He didn’t try to make the argument to anybody that work requirements were unnecessary or were counterproductive in welfare. Instead, he simply decreed it by executive order and this has been a pattern of this administration where they believe their own ideology trumps the views of the American people.

And the third critical failing of this new policy is that it hurts the recipients of welfare. The most compelling reason behind the bipartisan welfare reform that we saw is that helping those receiving government assistance to get jobs, to stand on their own feet fundamentally transforms their lives. We are not doing anybody a favor by giving them welfare in perpetuity and making them dependent on government.

Ted, it's called "The Cloward-Piven Strategy". It's time we referred to it by its proper name.


Related: "Not even the USDA knows what people are buying with food stamps"