Imagine a scenario in which nearly 20 million Americans are out of work, a record number 46 million Americans are now on food stamps, and the federal government allows recipients of federal assistance to spend taxpayer funds on marijuana.
That's the situation now occurring under President Barack Obama, as his Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell clarified that welfare checks and EBT cards can now be used to purchase pot in states like Colorado and Washington where the once-controlled substance is now legal.
Don't count on Democrat swing state governors like Colorado's John Hickenlooper to intervene.
Customers shop for marijuana at Top Shelf Cannabis, a retail marijuana store, on July 8, 2014 in Bellingham, Washington. Top Shelf Cannabis was the first retail marijuana store to open today in Washington state, nearly a year and a half after the state's voters chose to legalize marijuana. David Ryder/Getty Images
Despite opposing legalization last year, Gov. Hickenlooper is now raking in the green. Desperate to win re-election this year, he is now accepting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the pot industry.
Republican state legislators in Colorado, such as Libby Zsabo (R-Arvada) and Dan Nordberg (R-Colorado Springs), have sought accountability on the state's new pot laws but thus far their suggestions have been rejected by Democrats, who currently hold a narrow majority of one state senate seat in the state legislature.
The abuse of federal assistance occurring now in the purchase of for newly-legalized drugs is not terribly surprising.
As a record number of Americans have flocked to food stamps, welfare recipients have been caught using their EBT cards to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, and recipients in states like California have even been caught using their EBT cards to withdraw cash at Las Vegas casinos and far-flung vacation destinations such as Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
The sad tale here is that federal assistance was originally established to help women -- and more importantly, children -- with the purchase food, formula, milk and other nutritional supplements, the prices of which have skyrocketed during the Obama administration. (One only needs to visit a grocery store these days to witness expensive formula being locked behind glass cases to prevent shoplifting of the expensive goods.)
AP Photo
With welfare funds now going to pot, I assert that this sort of abuse is the real "war on women" and children in our country.
The abuse is also proof that these extended welfare programs established by Democrats such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt ultimately don't work. The programs end up being abused over the long term and become rife with corruption -- as do most government-funded programs.
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