Another welfare fraud hoax

According to so-called "compassionate" conservatives, anyone who deservingly receives government benefits is committing welfare fraud.

I know this is bullshit, but in the past 15 years, this lie has become so entrenched in American social lore that it's hard to dislodge it. Whether you get disability benefits or if you're an impoverished, struggling child, the conservative wrath will fall on you with the fullest force.

I'm all for going after real welfare fraudsters. And I'm against corporate welfare and handouts to the rich (programs conservatives have long supported). But the portrayal of poor welfare recipients as being generally fraudulent was a hoax spread largely by talk radio, right-wing politicians, and the Internet (when the 'Net first became popular). However, this hoax encouraged "soak the poor" policies like Congress's failed welfare "reform" law of 1996.

Even after America's poorest families and disabled workers have been hopelessly left in the lurch, conservatives can't stop kicking them when they're down. And the media is always eager to lap up this demagoguery and spread misleading headlines.

For instance, a biased headline in a Minnesota paper about the latest story reads, "GOP shows it's so." So if the Republicans say something, that makes it true? Investigating the story, it turns out it isn't so.

Minnesota issues welfare in the form of benefit cards. In the past year, about $500,000,000 in transactions were made using these cards. I'm guessing that would be only about $500 all year per recipient - or under $10 a week.

While a poor Minnesotan spends only $10 a week in benefits, the Republicans cry that every recipient is ear-deep in fraud. They cite statistics showing that $10,000,000 of the $500,000,000 that recipients spent was in other states. For instance, they spent over $2,000,000 in both Wisconsin and North Dakota, which are immediately adjacent to Minnesota.

Republican lawmakers' conclusion? "THEY'RE VACATIONING ON THE TAXPAYERS' DIME!!!" they cry. Um, no. This $10,000,000 is only 2% of the total $500,000,000 spent. Most of this accounts for the 2% of Minnesotans who shop in, say, Fargo or La Crosse because these cities have the nearest stores to their homes.

It's exactly like how I go to Cincinnati all the time. Was I "vacationing" in Cincinnati when I did work for the Department of the Interior there? (To give you an idea of how many people commute, 48% of employed residents of one of the biggest counties in Minnesota work in the county that contains Fargo, North Dakota.)

Further, if a transaction appears to be out-of-state, it doesn't mean the buyer went out of state. Online orders count with the state where the seller is located. If you're in Minnesota, and you order a product from a seller in Hawaii, the purchase counts under Hawaii.

So shut your mouths, conservos. Quit judging what you know nothing about.

I have not one iota of sympathy for right-wing lawmakers who were born into wealth, make hefty salaries (paid by state taxpayers) to do their jobs all wrong, and then complain about the poor having it too easy. Not one fucking iota.

In sum, the latest alleged crisis of welfare "fraud" is yet another Republican hoax designed to whip up another frenzy of classism just for political gain.