What's the Matter with Kansas (Redux)?

I read the news and I shudder.

Thanks to the curdled “leadership” of Governor Sam Brownback, Kansas welfare recipients cannot, according to a new bill just signed into law, access their $400 per month benefits in cash except to a limit of $25 per day from an ATM. That would mean making 16 withdrawals each and every month. Or, the Governor suggested, people could pay their bills with money orders. If their creditors would not accept payment by the state’s debit cards.

Hey, Gov, money orders can cost up to $5 each (when’s the last time Sammy boy bought a money order to pay for anything?). Four hundred dollars won’t go far if money order fees consume a chunk of it.

And suppose it’s February, like the February we just survived, and the temperature is below zero and folks really don’t feel like going to the ATM in order to get money for food or other necessities.

A Kansas advocacy group issued a statement pointing out that this new law will prevent many poor families from participating in other support programs, including a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

There’s more, a whole lot more.

Welfare recipients who have the misfortune to live in the great state of Kansas, home of some of the craziest of the right-wing loonies, cannot use their benefits to spend money for alcoholic beverages, casino gambling or gaming, jewelry, tattoos, massages, body piercings, spas, nail salons, lingerie (you mean they can’t buy underwear?), tobacco, vapor cigarettes, fortune-tellers, bail bonds, video arcades, movies at theaters, access to swimming pools, cruise ships, theme parks, race tracks or off-track betting, lottery tickets, concert tickets (no Taylor Swift or Eminem for you!), most sporting events, any other entertainment events open to the general public, sex paraphernalia, strip clubs, and places where minors under 18 are not permitted (i.e., bars and sex clubs).

Ah, but there is a saving grace in the Gov’s bill: Kansas recipients of welfare can buy guns with their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cards. (Does this mean that our friends and neighbors on welfare might apply for TANF just to acquire money to buy a Ruger, a Glock, or a Smith and Wesson? And then hold up their friendly neighborhood grocery stores? Or even the aforementioned off-limits liquor stores? The possibilities are endless.)

And what is to prevent these needy folks from withdrawing cash and then spending the money on any of the verboten items in Brownback’s miserly legislation? Nothing at all. There appears to be no provision for body cams or electronic tracking devices to be attached to the ankles of the presumed-to-be-guilty-of-spending-money-to-survive recipients of TANF money. (What? No surveillance? But Kansas has implied that people who get welfare are up to no good. Unless you are a gun-owner. Then you are exercising your Constitutional rights.)

We used to label folks who receive welfare (generally, single mothers with young children) “welfare queens” who drove Cadillacs and had a dozen out-of-wedlock kids just to increase the amount of their welfare benefits and live the high life. Until Bill Clinton put an end to that (which really never existed except in the fevered minds of the Wall Street gang and their toadies). That’s right, folks, the Clinton welfare reforms tended to limit the number of years that people could receive welfare benefits and put parents with children of school age to work for a number of hours each week as a condition for being eligible for benefits.

So the era of easy living on welfare (the fantasy of easy living on welfare, because believe me, it isn’t easy at all) came to an end a couple of decades ago, and the American public, a/k/a the filthy rich politicians and their billionaire corporate cronies, got its money’s worth from those lazy folks who just didn’t want to work for a living. (Trust me, taking care of children is full-time work, hard work: no maids, nannies, or play dates for these families.)

Sam Brownback is rumored to be interested in running for President in 2016. In preparation, he has cut $45 million in his state’s public school funding. The Kansas public schools and colleges are struggling to stay open and it’s only April. He cut taxes for the wealthy so much that he may be forced to raise them again. And now he has become an inspiration to the governors and legislators in other states that have set strict limits on what, exactly, welfare recipients may spend the state’s money on, as if such people didn’t need every dime to pay for rent, food, and transportation. No limousine liberals on TANF.

As the LA Times put it, Kansas is breaking new ground in demeaning the poor. And states such as Missouri (where a bill is pending to deny poor people the right to purchase cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak with food stamps) are emulating Kansas. Some role model.

The New Republic has pointed out that in Brownback’s rush to create a “conservative utopia,” he instead established a “conservative hell.” I need hardly mention that Kansas has rejected the establishment of a state ACA Medicaid program, relinquishing $5.3 billion in federal funding and $2.6 billion in Medicaid reimbursements. Kansas is the only state with a reported increase in the percentage of uninsured individuals between 2013 and 2014, according to Karla Anderson, writing for HealthInsurance.org. This includes a number of disabled recipients who have lost their coverage altogether.

“Navigators” who assist people to sign up for ACA coverage pursuant to the federal exchange, under a Kansas bill that could have authorized them under a proposed state health insurance exchange, would have been subjected to onerous additional eligibility requirements, leading to further increases in the number of Kansas uninsured. Such individuals would have been required to undergo criminal background checks including fingerprinting, provide their credit histories, and pay a $100 annual registration fee. Scrooge is alive and well in Kansas. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, as my mother used to say.

In closing, let’s not forget Brownback’s local booster club: The Wichita-based Koch Brothers, the largest contributors to Brownback’s campaigns. Now there’s a fan club worth cultivating. D’ya think maybe Charlie and Dave Koch had a little chat with Sammy B? You bet your life they did (apologies to Groucho).