"i personally think giving entitlements in cash form is a joke. if someone falls on hard times and needs food assistance, they should get it in the form of grain, rice, powdered milk and such. Make being on welfare programs undesirable so it doesn't become a career choice.
I get so sick of being behind a ebt holder in the grocery store line with their buggies full of steaks and name brand groceries, swipe their card for the food then pull out cash for their carton of smokes and booze. I despise the way our handout programs are setup!"
Wait, you think they should be given need-specific items, but you also disapprove of them spending their
own money on non-need-specific items? Sounds like you simply want them to not have their smokes (i.e. be miserable and suffer for the 'crime' of poverty. You Puritan, you
). If they were given real cash instead of monopoly money, they could blow it on the smokes they feel they need, and not on the steaks neither you nor they really want. They could also spend it on the car repairs needed this week, the late rent/power bill next week, and set some aside for savings the week after that. Right now they'd require individual subsidies for each, which would flow in regardless of need.
Our current system is based around micromanaging every spending decision in their lives on the assumption their poverty means they
cannot make these decisions themselves; if such is the case, have them committed to an asylum as incompetents. Otherwise, these remotely-run programs will make less efficient choices than the individuals can (like giving them a giant can of powdered milk they'll just throw away since they have nothing but rice to mix it into
)
Hard to blame EBT holders for spending the balance, whatever it takes. Same rules our .gov budgeteers abide by.
TCB