Have you seen this thread? GOPers Trying To Pass Bill Making It Illgegal For The Poor To Have $20

[dflprincess]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x673389

Anyone know anymore about it?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I think it's this: If you are on public assistance you have to use debit cards

for everything (the debit cards you would get as public assistance payments). If you can't use cash they can keep track of what you buy, and can be sure you aren't using your welfare money for anything they don't think you deserve to have.

Also, if you have more than $20 in cash, they will probably assume you either stole it or have been selling drugs.

But the GOP opposes intrusive Big Government.

[Love Bug]

2. I think you've hit it on the head.

The State wants the ability to limit what can be bought with benefit money, and what better way than to program the debit cards to reject their use for say, alcohol or cigarettes? $20 cash will still buy those, but not a lot.

[SnowCritter]

3. I read HF0171 and the first engrossment

and it doesn't say what the headline attempts to imply.

The text of the bill does NOT define any kind of penalty for having more than $20 in your pocket in a given month and it certainly doesn't say that you can't have more than $20 in your pocket. It merely says that if the cardholder chooses to, he or she may get $20 per month cash from the MFIP account. It makes no assumption on any other monies the recipient makes.

Naturally, in order to get MFIP support, one must fall within the earnings guidelines.

Here's the link to the bill

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/getbill.php?number=HF0171&session=ls87&version=list&session_number=0&session_year=2011

The headline on the aforementioned thread is, to me, yellow journalism.

[kickysnana]

4. Food Stamps do not buy toilet paper, soap, deoderant, apirin

Debit cards are not accepted by doctors for copays, by landlords, & by utilities.

This is a crazy and mean bill.

If you do not follow the law it is called fraud and you will go to jail and lose any hope of any future benefits. They do not need penalties spelled out in the bill.

So if a cop stops to ask you who you are and where you are going and you have $23 in your pocket and have an EBT card are you charged with having illegal money under existing laws that confiscate stuff? It could go there.

I do not get direct aid but get Medicaid and I travel every 6 months to an out of town physician on my own money by bus TO STAY ALIVE. Medicaid will only pay for physicians in Minnesota. No physicians in MN are specialists in what I have. When you are on government programs under the GOP you are always afraid, depressed and angry at being capegoated. Just what TSA is looking for and they are trying to expand checks to buses, trains, els and subways.

Then they will institutionalize us and then that will be too expensive so then (fill in the blank)

[kickysnana]

6. The nightmare of transportation

EBT cards are not accepted at Metro Transit (at least they were not). The poor do not get free bus passes unless it is for medical care or to look for a job.

Stores post no backpacks allowed. Metromobility has a limit on the number of packages you can take (doctors order only $5 round trip no EBT) and busses also limit the number of packages a person can bring on. A lot of people share rides to the grocery store/drug store and hand the driver $1-2 depending on the distance no EBT, assistance and time involved. Family members help the elderly at their convenience and a lot of elderly go to the store when they are physically able and that does not always mesh. Sending someone with a list is problematic for anyone. (Sorry Dad you did your best but prune danish and prunes are two different things.) Most people shop sales with coupons to make ends meet and before 2008 young people thought coupons were silly and harassed the elder person for wanting to use them. The taxis you see are not the very poor more likely the working poor who do not have a car.

Poor people do not explain their daily lives but the GOP sure lies about it.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Sanity has left the building

Don't forget: It's not just a few bad politicians.

Our neighbors have set all this in motion.

We are swimming in a sea of evil, here.

(Or, since it's Minnesota, plowing through a parking-lot snowbank of it)