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Should the government put a limit on lottery winnings to welfare recipients?

No

by Brittany Murrietta


Let's put a price on luck, why don't we? Let's discriminate against the less fortunate, why don't we? And hell, while we're at it, let's make our government seem even more like a bunch of capitalist slobs by limiting PRIZE MONEY for the needy...because they're on welfare-they don't need the money anyways, right?!

Wrong. Putting a limit on lottery winnings to welfare recipients is just plain wrong.

This seems to be the more liberal view on the situation ever sense the Tennessee assembly proposed the bill, *HB 0818 by *Campfield, which puts limitations on lottery winnings to welfare recipients.

This is the bill which arouse the questioned topic, and no, limiting lottery winnings on that account is just plain vile. However, the proposed bill itself, for the record, is not.

"This bill prohibits convicted criminals who are incarcerated from redeeming winning lottery tickets and any winnings otherwise payable to any such persons would be declared unclaimed prizes."

If you're on welfare, my guess is you're on it for a reason; you need the money, but to keep yourself and your kids alive, not to buy booze. Therefore, in assuming lottery winners of who are also receiving this type of government assistance aren't druggies and boozers......

Isn't this basically suggesting that those who are poor should stay poor?

You say that those on welfare should be spending their money on necessities and that's it, but shouldn't we all have an open passageway to the gates of fortune?

Now those who oppose a limitless winning opportunity to those on welfare often refute by saying "those on welfare shouldn't be spending their welfare money on lottery tickets." But dare we ask if it's wrong to believe in luck? When nothing else is going right, don't we all rely a little on chance to turn the tables for us?

And say a welfare recipient did pass those gates, won the lotto, and had money for once in his or her life-would that be such a bad thing? That's one more person off of the welfare program, one more person, that otherwise would still be receiving government assistance.

The whole idea of this immorality is a bunch of bullocks, but I strongly encourage you to take another look at HB0818; it really does bring an interesting proposal to the table that maybe you can agree that other states might look into adopting. And if I can see it, I hope you can too.



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