California Scheming

This has not been a good period of time for California's moocher class. A public uproar recently forced the state to prevent welfare recipients from using government-provided ATM cards in casinos. Now there's a similar storm brewing about handouts being obtained using ATMs in strip clubs. Here's a report from the LA Times.

California welfare recipients have been able to get taxpayer cash — meant to feed and clothe their children — from ATMs at strip clubs across the state, including some well-known gentlemen's cabarets in Los Angeles. More than $12,000 from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program was dispensed between the start of 2007 and the end of 2009 at clubs, including Sam's Hofbrau, Star Strip and Seventh Veil, according to officials at the state Department of Social Services. ...The move came a day after The Times asked the administration how much welfare cash had been withdrawn at 17 adult clubs in recent years, and less than a week after The Times reported that more than half the casinos and state-licensed poker rooms in California appear on the state website showing welfare recipients where they can access cash benefits. After that report, Schwarzenegger ordered the casinos struck from the state's ATM network and directed the Department of Social Services to produce a plan to reduce "waste, fraud and abuse" in the welfare program.