Your Tax Dollars At Work

California is bankrupt. It has thrown money around like water for "green initiatives," public employee salaries and pensions, railroads to nowhere, and a thousand government schemes to create useless projects that put public employees to work at the expense of private (wealth-generating) enterprise.

The drunken spending spree hit its nadir when it recently came out that in the past three years, $69 million of California welfare funds extorted from hard-working taxpayers went to spending sprees in Las Vegas, Hawaiian resorts and Miami cruises. The welfare pimps immediately denied there was anything wrong with that because California has "one of the lowest fraud rates in the country." Well, that's a pretty strange defense of outright fraud, but it's probably also a pretty good heads-up for the other forty-nine states.

In the forefront of the Obama welfare state, California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and a generous welfare plan that very loosely defines its welfare funds as "money needed for basics such as food and shelter." Since there's damned little definition of what food is allowable and none as to where the money can be spent, Las Vegas casinos, Hawaiian luaus and Princess cruises seem as good as any.

Most surprising of all, it wasn't a private watchdog group that revealed the massive misuse of public funds. It was the liberal rag The Los Angeles Times, acting for the first time in ages like a real newspaper. The report also accidentally revealed just how easy the fraud is. Back in the good old days of massive welfare cheating, food stamps had to be used in front of God and everyone, complete with the list of forbidden fruit which could not be purchased. A massive criminal enterprise developed trading food stamps for discounted dollars that could be used for that forbidden fruit. Welfare recipients actually had to wait for a check to show up in the mail, then take their rear ends down to a bank and deposit them.

But California is always ahead of the nation in high-tech (including high-tech fraud). No need to go to the bank anymore. No need to piss off the people behind you in line at the supermarket while you fumble through your food stamps to pay for the food provided by working taxpayers. California is on the cutting-edge. Welfare recipients now have direct deposits into their bank accounts, and instead of those embarrassing food stamps, they get a perpetually-refilled bank debit card.

Here's the actual breakdown of how those California welfare debit cards were used. $12 million in Las Vegas casinos. $1.5 million in Miami resorts and restaurants. $400,000 at Hawaiian resorts. $16,000 in cash withdrawn from ATM machines on board cruise ships. Another dubious honor is that the welfare pimps say that's only about 1 percent of the welfare money handed out during the same period of time. Scant praise indeed.

Considering that Nevada has an even worse unemployment rate than California, I suppose these Californians are actually just trying to fix the unemployment problems of the casinos in their sister state. And let's not forget the hula dancers and common seamen. The altruistic generosity is just overwhelming. And remember, that piddly little 1 percent of the total state welfare money means that $11 billion in gummint money is being retained within the state of California. And as Nancy Pelosi tells us, that $11 billion in printed gummint largess translates into almost $18 billion in profits. And if you believe that, I have this pyramid-shaped skyscraper in San Francisco that I'm willing to sell you cheap (cash only, please).

Mike Herald, poverty pimp for the Western Center on Law and Poverty has an explanation for the big welfare spenders. "When people go on 'assistance,' they're going to have the same kind of life situations come up as anyone else. You're going to visit your sick relative. You're going to go to funerals out of state. That's what's going on here."

I was never lucky enough to have one of those family crises, let alone on the public dole. I never had the opportunity for the government to pay for my trip to visit my sick relatives on the sunny white beaches of Honolulu. I never had the opportunity to visit them on cruise ships, either. What kind of sickness are we talking about here, Mr. Herald? Seasickness? And neither of my parents is buried under a slot machine in Las Vegas (although I'm not sure my dad wouldn't have like that).

Once again, just like Pelosi's food stamp nonsense, the left has become so crazed and so out-of-touch with the real world that they can justify the payment of millions or even billions of dollars out of the treasury of a bankrupt state on wine and caviar outside of California. With a little luck and the good Lord willing, they will themselves pay for that profligacy in November. If not, I'm sending Sacramento my bank account number so they can set up a debit card for me.