There was a time when there were standards for getting food stamps (now EBT cards). The food stamp program was designed to help families with the necessities. You couldn’t buy anything you want with food stamps.

When my oldest son worked at a grocery store, he was indignant when a woman came through the checkout line with foods that were not permitted to be purchased with food stamps. She protested to the manager. He let it pass. What does he care? He’ll get his money no matter a food-stamp holder purchases.

More than 45 million people – 15 percent – are on food stamps. That’s about one-sixth of the population. A general rule of economics is, “The more money you throw at a program, the more you get of it.” Is it any wonder that obesity is America’s number-one health problem? Maybe Mayor Bloomberg should be looking at EBT cards as the problem for obesity and not Big-Gulp drinks.

It’s now worse than this, at least in Massachusetts. “If you are a tax payer in Massachusetts, you get to fund EBT cards for those who want to buy tattoos, manicures, body piercings or porn.” The legislature had the good sense to stop the madness, but it seems that Governor Deval Patrick had other ideas.

“According to the Boston Herald, which first reported the veto, the governor berated the legislature’s stab at banning the purchase of specific items like manicures, tattoos, guns, porn, body piercings, jewelry, and bail by saying the move was ‘political grandstanding’ at a time when such reforms are already on track elsewhere.”

This is typical of a liberal. Common sense legislation is “political grandstanding.” Could it be that Gov. Patrick is protecting his political back by not upsetting his voting base? Patrick is black. Here is his excuse for the veto:

“I’m not going to do anything that makes vulnerable people beg for their benefits. This notion of humiliating poor people has got to be separated from how we make a program, and frankly separated and disposed of, from how we make a program work and work well.”

Is it any wonder that tax payers are upset with the way their hard-earned confiscated money is spent by their “benevolent” governments? You know what he was really saying. “This is a racial issue since more blacks get EBT cards than whites.”

Food stamps were about food. The EBT card is about Electronic Benefits Transfer. While “benefits” are defined in the law; they’re not defined by the end user.

Not all welfare recipients live high on the hog, but there are so many loopholes in how welfare works and how welfare recipients are looked at by Leftist bureaucrats that the abuses are in the billions. Gov. Patrick is hurting the very people the program was designed to help. He’s alike a drug dealer who gives the first few fixes away for free.