My biggest pet peeve about people on welfare is they always seem to spend their money on Caribbean cruises rather than food for their families.
If that statement sounds ludicrous to you, congratulations. You have more sense than Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.
Brownback is currently considering whether to sign a bill that would prohibit Kansas welfare recipients from spending their assistance on cruises, jewelry, movie tickets, swimming, psychics and casinos.
It is unclear whether the Republican-majority state legislature has done the math on this issue. According to NPR, the average welfare recipient in Kansas receives less than $300 a month — or $75 a week — in assistance.
To me, $75 dollars a week sounds like a trip to the grocery store for one, at best. But to the lawmakers in Kansas, that money goes a long way toward hitting up the local casino or getting one’s palm read.
The bill is ostensibly designed to cut down on welfare fraud, but it’s hard to imagine many Kansans abuse the welfare system in such an irresponsible manner. Then again, it’s not hard to puzzle out the real meaning of the legislation.
For decades, many conservatives have put forward a narrative that is downright scornful toward the poor. After all, in The Land of Opportunity, it’s assumed that anyone and everyone can rise to prosperity with a little elbow grease. So if you aren’t wealthy, you must be lazy.
An observant citizen will immediately note this is a skewed perception of reality. Poverty, lack of access to education, inadequate financial planning, disease and myriads of other factors can all contribute to a spiral of poverty that is nearly impossible to escape.
But that runs counter to the narrative of the welfare-queen, that boogeyman that encompasses everything conservatives hate about the poor. It’s the welfare queen who is destroying society, mooching off the hardworking until they decide that they, too, would like a free ride. And it’s all downhill from there.
Consider other provisions of the bill: Welfare recipients will be limited to withdrawals of $25 a day from ATMs, and families will face a three-year lifetime limit on financial aid.
In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage proposed a bill that would prohibit people on welfare from spending money out of state. Some Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal that would disallow welfare recipients from withdrawing money from an ATM at all.
All of these repressive proposals should be rejected by conservatives out of hand. After all, they would contribute heavily to the “nanny state” bemoaned by so many on the right. But for these lawmakers, fear and loathing toward the pernicious “welfare state” override any idea of limited government.
And it’s not just the government. You don’t have to look far to find a regular citizen who knows poor people are out to game the system because a Fox News “expert” told them so. I’ve lost count of the number of vindictive Facebook posts I’ve seen demanding drug tests for welfare recipients.
Here’s something to think about. LSU lists five government grant programs on its financial aid webpage. As a student, you could be a “welfare” recipient and hardly know it. The number of drugs on campus would likely disqualify half of LSU’s student body from receiving financial aid if anyone bothered to demand drug testing for students.
I get it. It’s much more satisfying to lash out on a personal level at an individual abusing welfare than a gargantuan bank against which any one person is powerless. But it’s time to put the blame where it belongs.
Poor people are not the enemy. Let that sink in. Those Kansans who are supposedly living lavishly on $75 dollars a week? They are not the reason our country is in trouble.
We know exactly who threatens the American economy, but it seems easier for state legislatures to focus their deliberative energies on making life harder for the poor. It should hardly come as a surprise, though. There are huge, powerful, wealthy forces that have a vested interest in making you hate the less fortunate.
For every middle class American who turns their anger toward a welfare recipient because of a sensational story on Fox News, an old, rich, white banking executive cons another sucker.
Stop falling for it. It’s time to stop letting cable news and state legislatures bully the poor into taking responsibility for the state of our nation. It’s time for those who truly endanger the well being of the U.S. to take the blame rather than allowing further oppression of the poor.
Alex Mendoza is a 22-year-old political science and international studies senior from Baton Rouge. You can reach him on Twitter @alexmendoza_TDR.