Bill would cap lottery winnings for poor

The mean-spirited effort to force the poor, disabled, or unemployed to take drug tests to receive aid is a coordinated nationwide movement. It's all built on a hoax, and this policy had already been ruled unconstitutional in the '90s.

I heard rumblings about a separate bill in Tennessee that was also clearly designed with classist humiliation in mind. It seemed so bizarre that suspension of disbelief almost kicked in, and I wasn't quite sure if the story wasn't just an urban legend.

This bill would cap lottery winnings for the poor at $600. It sounded like the type of useless legislation that would be introduced by right-wing State Rep. Stacey Campfield - the infamous "blogging legislator" and self-styled video game expert. Campfield is known for such a stunningly poor command of basic language skills that he began submitting all his blog entries to a network of proofreaders before posting them.

Now I've found more information about the effort. The bill was indeed introduced by Campfield, and it would strictly limit lottery winnings for anyone who gets state or federal assistance (even if they have a job).

In other words, rich people who play the lottery can still collect, while the working poor cannot.

And this is supposed to accomplish what?

Frankly, I don't think there's a pandemic of welfare recipients spending money on lottery tickets. I personally don't know anyone who simultaneously gets welfare and plays the lottery, so Campfield is actually attacking an issue that doesn't even exist! This makes it even clearer that Campfield is just trying to rub everyone's noses in their predicament and make political hay of it.

Even more shockingly, this isn't even a new idea. It turns out that New York has had an even more restrictive policy in place since the war on the poor of the '90s. In New York, your winnings are limited to $600 if you've collected any public assistance in the past 10 years.

How is this not classism at its most methodical?

How does society benefit from the humiliation embodied by such a policy being on the books? It doesn't. Worse, it encourages other class-charged policies, which are more likely to harm many more people.