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 ...The move came a day after The Times asked the administration how much welfare cash had been withdrawn at 17 adult clubs in recent years, and less than a week after The Times reported that more than half the casinos and state-licensed poker rooms in California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.

Please Don't Feed the Bums

I'm sure a lot of statist will be horrified by this story from the west coast, but they've probably never had to deal with aggressive bums that make a career out of mooching. The economics in this story are rather straightforward: If you make it easier for people to be bums, more people will be bums. There are separate, and much more challenging issues about people on the streets who are mentally unbalanced, but I strong suspect a strong majority of bums are not in that category.

A sticker with the phrase “Please don’t feed our bums” is stuck on storefronts around Ocean Beach and is based on satire of The National Park Service’s “Please don’t feed the bears” sticker. The sticker is also bringing a serious message. “People who live and work in the area know how it feels to be harassed by these people,” said Chaz Lomack, who works at an Ocean Beach business. The stickers are targeting a new group of homeless -- young aggressive panhandlers who choose not to work and ask for money instead. ...An employee at an Ocean Beach store called The Black started carrying the stickers two weeks ago. Ken Anderson, who did not want to be interviewed on camera, said the stickers were meant to make the community realize the homeless population has become out of control. “A lot of these kids have cell phones and they come from well-off families,” said Lomack. There have even been reports of violence against people who do not give the homeless money. “We don’t want them to do that because it is just enabling them to do their thing,” said Lomack.

Parasites Need a Healthy Host

The moochers and special interests who live off government presumably do not (or at least should not) want to kill off the private sector. That is one of the observations I make in an interview with Stuart Varney of Fox News. I also comment on the Laffer Curve, explaining why "taxing the rich" will backfire.