But to be honest, it's amazing that buying toilet paper is out of bounds but cigs and beer is okay? A truly FUBAR system.

But the bottom line is she refused to make a sale. If I owned the store, I would have fired her too.

Of course, it wasn't up to the employee to make that decision, but I hate these stories because it just stokes the fires of the RW who want to paint all welfare recipients as a bunch of cheats, sucking off the tax payers, while buying booze and cigarettes.

Yes, I know we can go on and on about how the rich are ripping taxpayers off, but we lose the argument when this kind of thing happens...

I hope that doesn't cost us any arguments because it's all over the culture.

I'm saying it doesn't make our job easier to defend buying cigarettes with income assistance money. We liberals talk about the plight of the poor and rightfully so, we should. But in the RWingers demented brain, this is ALL the poor do with "taxpayers money" (as if the poor don't pay taxes).

That's all I'm saying here...

about what stupid people think." -- But for the life of me, can't remember who it was. lol

person who told me we shouldn't be divisive by accusing the rich for not paying their fair share of taxes. So I came home from having my oil change a little depressed that the needle hasn't moved on these RW talking points. I've been his customer for YEARS and we still get into these arguments...and his grandkids are on the state HUSKY health care program because their parents don't have health insurance.

I guess it's all a lost cause...

to make sure your mechanic is on their side, we can say for sure that propaganda works, really well.

people and not others.

That's how I understand it. There must be some kind of biological variation that some people have and some don't have.

It would be hard to hold anything against the propagandized right?

isn't very profitable any way, regardless of why they are who they are.

discussion is encouraged & ideas are exchanged to become a real progressive. I've seen kids rebel against super right wing parents by becoming more liberal, just to piss the parents off, but that kind of political conversion is iffy at best. The best conversion to a Progressive ideology comes from a free
discussion of ideas & an open mind. The Right winger has no such problem to arrive at a political position, because it doesn't take much thinking to be greedy or hateful.

I grew up in a large Catholic family in the 1960s when the Catholics were largely Democrats and more concerned about feeding the poor than stopping abortion. Bobby Kennedy was speaking out against poverty when I was a teenager. I was 14 or 15 when he was killed. I remember long conversations at the dinner table about how best to help the poor, how wonderful Medicare and Head Start were and the shame of the growing poverty in the US. Never once did I get the impression that poor people were to be ridiculed or treated badly just because they were poor. I was an adult in my 30s before I ever heard any of this crap from the right wing about poor people not deserving to be helped. It sounded disgusting them and it still sounds disgusting today.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time..."

"I'm too old to be governed by fear of dumb people."

Someone caught the line and tweeted it.

It's my new favorite thing.

And true

Absolutely fantastic and completely inspiring.

Do you believe that people on the TANF program (Targeted Assistance for Needy Families; food stamps) should be barred from buying, oh say, a ribeye steak? Should they be restricted to a diet of lentils and tripes?

Of course you don't think that, right? They're human beings, and as such are, in fact, entitled to have some pleasure in their lives.

If the funds allow for the purchase of cigarettes, I have no problem with that. And frankly given that cigarettes aren't really "optional" for their addicts, I find it harder to hold a grudge on that one.

It's easy to defend; simply make the argument that being poor does not subliminate a person into some "subhuman" status, where htye must be denied the perks of being a person.

Hell, if it were up to me, there'd be a "quality of life" fund for needy families that could be used to purchase access to concerts or theaters or the like. Why? Because goddamn it, human beings can't live like "work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, die"

I mean, the world you want. That cold, hard fact is we don't. We, as progressives, try very hard to humanize the poor and this one instance gets to be the poster child for the RW rant about how "those" people are wasting tax payers money on cigarettes.

Personally, I would rather see money spent on smoking cessation programs because I see no good in hastening the physical disease and early death that are direct results of cigarette smoking. Helping the poor live sicker and die sooner is hardly a value that I subscribe to.

...about encouraging the poor to give up smoking by funding a program like that, and was told to mind my own business.....just because I'm for public health care doesn't mean I'm for rushing people to the most expensive option of lung cancer.

In fact, both can harm you and kill you. I still strongly believe that public money can be better spent on prevention with regard to cigarettes. Harder to limit what food people on welfare can buy since even fruit juice can be potentially harmful...

lives, even if it is a cigarette or a beer, when the wealthiest and biggest screw-ups who toppled our economy, get bailed out with tax dollars, use it to reward themselves with huge bonuses, are not held accountable for their corruption, and no one even asks what they are spending our tax dollars on?

I would go for some restrictions on how tax dollars used to help people out so long as those restrictions were equally applied to Wall Street Bankers.

Right wingers don't want to ask corrupt Wall Street Bankers what they spent our handouts to them, on. But whenever I have a conversation like this with one of them, I always ask them to explain why we do not apply the same standards to those taking Corporate Welfare. And I always mention drugs and alcohol and ask them is what they want their tax dollars to be spent on. It doesn't shut them up, but it puts them on the defensive for a change.

lose when we try to make a case for what used to be called "the deserving poor" receiving public assistance. The reality is that it is used us against time and time again. "You see what those welfare recipients are spending YOUR tax money for? Cigarettes!" What I am talking about is a political reality, not what I think is "moral."

Personally, I don't think public money should be spent on further addicting people to Big Tobacco and their fortunes. I would rather see smoking cessation programs for everyone. But it is unpopular here because some see this as denying the poor the pittance of a cigarette, rather than seeing it as public money paying for a large corporation that makes huge amounts of money out of the illness and early death of tobacco addicts...

Just my 2 cents on some of the 1%...

so.

you don't need to argue against the wingers' fake arguments; the people actually receiving the welfare $$$ = corporations.

stupidity and often in positions of power today, from the cash register to the board room, as well as politicians. Sensibility has fled the America of today in so many ways. The country is diseased with ignorance and stupidity.

I'd be pissed too.

Or are you saying only people with incomes can use resources paid for with tax money? Neither position makes a lick of sense.

Welfare isn't an obligation on my part.

Citizens provide welfare to the poor for their own reasons. If directly handing him a pack of smokes doesn't fulfill those purposes, then it is justified to evaluate the program.

Do you think it be a good idea to set up a tobacco/liquor/ammo bank next door to the food bank so that poor folks can get free cigarettes, guns and booze? If not, then you (just like me) are setting conditions on the kinds of aid which are appropriate for public funds.

Are you going to follow the mailman around, too, to make sure he doesn't deliver mail to the unemployed? Are you out on the highway making sure only people with jobs drive on it? What about the jobless using the electrical grid or our water supply?

Seriously, the position makes no sense whatsoever. If you want to sit in judgment of other people, that's one thing. But if you want to put special limitations on cash grants, you need to take it up with the state, not with the person who is simply following the rules.

Public support for welfare is contingent on the money being spent to promote the recipients welfare.

I'm not bashing the guy buying cigarettes with welfare funds. He's living within the rules you're creating and promoting. Those rules cause demonstrable harm to public attitudes about welfare, and risk the cashflow upon which it depends.

company's.
They lobbied to have smokes included, why the pol's allowed it I'll never know. (well, yeah, for their money)
But to yell at the guy for buying them is misplaced anger.
Just DONT allow him, and he cant.

It makes the RW look bad because they are telling poor people what to do with what little money they get.

aren't, sad but true. Demonizing the poor is what Fox News does all the time. "Look what they've done now...buying cigarettes with your hard earned taxpayer dollars!" Outrage!

I would have given her a raise.

that could get your store in trouble with the state and the feds?

Brilliant.

(which allows the purchase), that's discrimination.

In fact, I've seen more than 1 sign at a store or restaurant that says they refuse the right to serve anyone.

One the same note the employer apparently has the legal right to fire the employee for cutting into his sales. It's weird seeing an avowed socialist siding with employer profits over the employee.

Retail store owners have to cultivate good relations with everyone from the beat cop to the county board to the feds to stay open for business.

And those signs don't absolve anyone from the law. You can toss a guy for being rowdy. You can't toss him for being in a wheel chair and so on. Or, you can, but then you have to deal with the consequences.

just sayin'

A rousing defense of free market theory, by the way.

for no reason could get your permit pulled, just sayin'.

And once upon a time it was the progressive position that tobacco companies were killing people for money. Now we're supposed to be propping them up with tax dollars meant to help people which is ironic considering we'll also have to pay for any subsequent lung cancer treatments but we'll have less money for that since we're too busy paying for cigarettes.

Since she worked at that store for more than two weeks, it's doubtful.

And once upon a time, it wasn't necessary to explain why the poor were entitled to their human dignity -- oh, wait, that's wrong. It has always been necessary to explain why the poor have the same human rights other people have.

And when did buying tobacco become a sign of dignity?

And choice has always been a measure of dignity.

about a cashier that was an asshole to one of her customers because they had a Welfare card.

I don't know why. I'm not making any profit off the sale. They're profiting off of addictions they advertise to instill in people and they're profiting off of public money while stiffing the public for the tab when it comes to treating wholly preventable diseases. And now they'll get more money to buy more advertising.

tobacco farmers.

just saying.

corporations and tobacco farmers lobbied to make it one.

what you're suggesting is no different from a clerk refusing to sell you a cake because she thinks you're too far.

or from a clerk refusing to sell you birth control because it's against god's will.

everybody thinks poor people are in need of their management.

fuck the lot of them.

At any rate I don't see why a honest person should be fired over this. Who fires someone over a single minor, honest infraction?

meanwhile, the world is on fire.

but don't let any poor people spend public money on cigarettes, that'll fix it.

And I'd love to see the argument against listing cigs as ineligible if it does get proposed (and with this news story, it may well be proposed).

I seem to remember massive, nationwide lawsuits taking the tobacco companies to task for killing hundreds of thousands of people per year and overburdening the healthcare system. Not that healthcare is current or anything. So instead of holding them to account for deceptive practices and getting states reimbursed for their costs we're spending ever-tightening supplies of public welfare funding to prop them up.

And arguing over it on what may well be the eve of the ACA being struck down.

How can this NOT be germane?

they don't need to have their lives micro-managed by a society that already treats them like shit. What poor people need (besides the necessities - which they barely get)) is their right to privacy like any other citizen in the U.S. Welfare is the price that we, a capitalist society, pay in order to maintain that capitalist society. There will never be 100% employment and there will never be a population that is 100% employable.

You're absolutely right but you don't go far enough.

We're all being micromanaged and treated like crap. What do you think The Mandate is? It's one, big, "No, you're not allowed to not buy insurance because X, Y or Z could happen to you so we're going to tell you what is best for you even though statistically there's no real reason for you to have this." Look at the TSA. Look at standardized testing. Look at the food police. Look at the TSA feeling-up grandma's colostomy bag.

Name one facet of our lives where we can go and there isn't some agency brought to you by the same crew that brought us bank bailouts. There they stand, looking over your shoulder and wagging a disapproving finger. I don't smoke but if I went to buy a pack of cigarettes with money I made selling lemonade made from lemons I grew in my own backyard I'd have to run a vertiable gauntlet of lectures and condescending sneers because someone, somewhere decided they knew what was best for me. Assuming of course the local stores didn't pay-off the city council to pass so-called "food safety" ordinances to shut me down because I didn't have an inspection permit from office that never answers its phone or pay fees only large businesses can afford. The only way people would have defended the cashier in the OP was if it were Wal-Mart doing the firing.

I wish the people standing up for the rights and dignity of welfare recipients would stand up for the rights and dignity of the people whose livelihoods support welfare. NO! That's not a slam against people on welfare. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: If we don't hang together we shall surely hang separately. A single mother working and going to school to better her place in life is a hero, as much a hero as those who serve in the US military IMHO and she deserves as much support, admiration and encouragement. My dad was that single mother! ( ) YES! I believe they should be treated equally -- but that's the point isn't it? We aren't being treated equally because those who contribute are being treated as lessers. Not by those being helped, they're too busy just trying to eke out a new day form themselves and their families. The contributors are being treated like pre-criminals from The Minority Report. And as soon as that single mother gets off welfare and becomes a contributor she too will be treated as if it was always her fault that some people are poor. God forbid she move up to a 6-digit salary, then she might as well be a 17th century witch.

I saw a man 6 months out of work not make the cut-off for hiring because the contractor chose a half dozen parolees for the tax credits. He walked away hiding his tears. Yes, it's important to give criminals a chance to reform but the man who never broke the law lost out because of it. He had just as good a resume as the others, maybe better; his only crime was he had never committed a crime. Would society be better served if he too committed a crime, clogged up the system and had to be warehoused just so he was more attractive through tax credits? Where is the defense of his dignity, respect and equality?

Do you really trust the people who make up such distorted programs to alleviate poverty? I'm seriously starting to think that the single greatest act of charity and dignity we could affect on behalf of those who are genuinely suffering would be to get them the hell away from the government that wiretaps and molests the rest of us. I don't know where the cure is but I starting to get an inkling of where it isn't.

Rant: OFF

Thank you for giving me something to think about. Your last 3 paragraphs are insightful, imho.

how exactly is this helping the owner, from a business perspective?

With how little help they get, you want to stand over their shoulder and tell them what not to buy because you don't approve of it?

I don't fucking care if she wanted a chocolate bacon cheeseburger, a six pack of beer, and a case of smokes. The money is hers to do with as she sees fit. It's no one's business what she does with it.

I'm not saying you're responsible for Bloomberg's nonsense but you get my drift.

The purchase would wrung up. The law only applies to restaurants.

It's bullcrap. Using assistance on cigarettes instead of more food, clothing or something of real value. Cigarettes only increase costs to society through medical expenses in the long run. There should be a provision to keep those things from being purchased with EBT. How about guns? Should you be able to spend EBT on that? How about Romney fundraiser T-shirts and buttons?

If you want cigarettes, you should have to find some way to pay for them other than EBT, or better yet, give them up.

And people wonder why right wingers want to completely do away with thwe system. It's crap like this.

You want to get in the faces of poor people and tell them exactly how to spend money given to them. Would you do it to someone who is on social security? Disability? What about politicians who are paid by taxpayer dollars? Where do you draw the line?

It's money they have a right to spend at their own discretion no matter your feelings. I am as anti-smoking as they come, but I draw the line at telling people how to spend money given to them. I don't care if they're buying NRA loves Sarah Palin t-shirts. I don't care.

Besides, cigarettes don't just increase costs just because of poor people, you know.

the entire state budget is being funded on cigarette taxes it seems.

so don't talk to me about "increasing the cost to society".

that's the real crap.

and tobacco is eligible because corporations and tobacco farmers want it to be, and that's where the money ultimately goes. back to the state, and back to the corporations.

I imagine you then run a most successful company in which people are given raises for validating your own personal, political opinions, yes?

What then is that company...?

Personal. Society doesn't benefit from government incentivizing of harmful behaviors like smoking. How much more money for needy EBT users could be available if selfish asses didn't spend EBT money on smokes. Every pack of smokes is one healthy meal not available to the truly needy.

Maybe we can see EBT guns and ammo next quarter. After all, whose business is it?

Disgusting.

maybe it was Public Assistance at all

If she truly thought the card was food stamps only, then I wouldn't fire her for refusing that sale, since it's not only illegal for people to buy non-food with food stamp EBTs, it's also illegal to sell such items.

They must not have had a scanner type register; otherwise, he could have swiped the card, and if it didn't allow cash sales, it wouldn't have accepted the payment.

The clerks who sell to minors typically lose their jobs and the store owners are fined thousands of dollars.

Although it doesn't say that she suspected that it was a sting operation, sometimes when a clerk refuses to sell something to someone there's a reason for it.

By mistake* I mean about what the cards covered. I had no idea that they covered cigarettes, and did not know they did not cover toilet paper!

So I confess to being clueless about this issue, but she didn't have to get on her high horse. Sorry, but some people are as addicted to cigarettes as others are to coffee or soda pop for the caffeine or sugar.

Sounds like she was pushing her religion or whatever it was and she didn't give a damn or need a job. Maybe she thought she'd get to sue or something!

Heck, give the guy her job -- I'm sure he wants one. And as far as the tax payers paying for cigarettes - how much did she pay into the Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security she's probably going to get?

Will those who complain about those being welfare want to check and see what she buys with that money?

This was enlightening about what these cards pay or don't pay for, but it's hard I guess to tell what is what with them. AFAIK, they are treated like credit or debit cards and no one's business.

Big stores take these now, like COSTCO. It's not her business, not anyone's. It's still good money.

If the EBT card was food-only then the cardholder could buy neither beer nor cigarettes nor toilet paper. The strip on the EBT card will tell the register whether or not to accept the card as payment for the item(s). The decision isn't up to the judgement of the cashier.

my guess is that ebts for "food stamps" programs are good only (no toilet paper, no cigs, no booze, no gambling)
and ebts for other programs, such as wic or child support, can be used for anything (including toilet paper, cigs, booze, and gambling)

i'm not clear on which program permits cigs and booze but not toilet paper...?

and cereal. And even for those items you have to buy stuff that meets nutritional guidelines. Its a paper voucher that can only be exchanged for food.

SNAP (aka food stamps) is a debit card you can only use for food. And "food" does include junk food and some items like "bloody mary mix" but not anything with actual alcohol in it. Well maybe vanilla extract or something... but its a stretch to assume people are getting loaded on cake flavoring. You can't buy any "prepared foods" with SNAP, so no deli sandwiches, fried chicken, etc that grocery stores sell in their deli section.

TANF (temporary assistance for needy families) as I understand it is "welfare". Its a debit card that you can spend like cash. Not sure if it can be used for booze or gambling.

But you can buy toilet paper, beer and cigarettes with cash benefits on the EBT. You can't buy them with food stamp benefits on an EBT.

She was going to quit but not soon enough for the store. So they fired her after she stated she was giving them 1 week notice.

Really, and she didn't know that there are two kinds of EBT cards or two kinds of payments cash and food? Really??? In most stores this situation happens on a daily basis. Sounds to me like she had a stick up her arse that day, it wasn't just not knowing. And lets say that this scenario of not knowing didn't reek of falsehood, yeah right. Anyway, in that situation nothing prevents a cashier from asking a question or calling a manager.

"'She didn’t think it was right and just wasn’t going to sell to people in that program anymore,' Wilkins said."

The business offered to let her stay, but she said she would not take them anymore. She gave them a week's notice and said she would not accept the cards during that week.

That is when they fired her.

No candy bars for overweight people?
No booze if she perceived you were an alcoholic?

She just randomly makes up 'rules' as she went along, because of personal prejudices?


She would have been fired on the spot for refusing a legally allowable transaction at the unionized grocery store where I used to work, and it would have been damned difficult to save her job for that one.

I didn't know that.

but it seems like there should be a short list of prohibited items.

It just strikes me as odd that we spend however many millions to tell people that tobacco is bad for them, we raise taxes on them on the assumption that we should be forcing people to stop by making it harder to buy them, we drastically limit where you can smoke but then . . . we allow this.

Seems hypocritical.

Illegal drugs is probably on the list.

When it comes to the cash, let them get whatever they want. I don't care. Food stamps have enough restrictions on it as it is. This is such a non-issue, IMO. Especially when most people don't even blink an eye when it comes to corporate welfare. That's the real hypocrisy.

just not with that money.

You don't see it as odd that we spend so much effort trying to get people to quit or never start then we literally pay some people to smoke?

I have a problem getting in people's private business like this.

Since there are limits on what those can be used for.

They should be usable for purchasing anything right? Since otherwise we'd be "getting in their business".

I think the amount should be raised and what's allowed expanded to include non-food items such as toilet paper, toothpaste, diapers, shoes, etc. There are numerous other things that are not food which should be covered, IMO.

It's demeaning enough as it is. Why make it worse for people by getting in their shopping carts and telling them what's not okay to buy.

Lottery tickets?

Consumer electronics?

Tattoos?

It's not our business. I don't care what they spend the money on. They'd still have to be just as responsible as the rest of us. Once the money is gone, it's gone.

It'd still be gone if they followed your limitations and were irresponsible with the funds.

If they want to spend their own money on whatever, well that is up to them but when they accept tax payer money there should be some limitations and tobacco should be one of those limitations as should be alcohol and gambling.....

just as it would be yours next year when you lose your job and your home and need a hand for a while.

Or, maybe you'd like your contribution back. In that case, you'd need to promise to stop using all the services we all pay for, from your power lines to the road under your tires. You decide.

Corporations get taxpayer money. Retired people get social security.

So, let's limit what they all spend with their money if we're going to do this to poor people.

Or should only poor people be subjected to this?