Cash welfare recipients in Maine may have spent portions of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) allotment at bowling alleys, a pet store and a tattoo parlor, according to Department of Health and Human Services records.
The Maine Wire has reported exclusively on evident abuses of Maine’s cash welfare program, including transactions occurring in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in bars, liquor stores, cigarette shops and strip clubs.
An analysis of the data also reveals questionable transactions at Spare Time Recreation bowling alleys in Brunswick, Waterville, Hallowell and Lewiston. According to DHHS records, $880 in welfare cash has been accessed at those locations over the last three years.
Taxpayers have also footed the bill for entertainment sessions at the Woburn Bowladrome in Woburn, Mass. and the Newport Entertainment Center (NEC). Transactions at these locations amount to nearly $1,700 since 2011.
[RELATED: Maine welfare cash spent at liquor stores, strip clubs and smoke shops…] [RELATED: Maine EBT cards used in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands…]
The TANF data also includes four transactions at a tattoo and body piercing studio in Windham, Maine. The studio, Windham Tattoo and Body Piercing, is named in transactions worth $300, $200, $140, and $100.
Lest humans have all the welfare fun, records show that in June of 2012, someone spent $20 in welfare cash at Pawsitively Pets in Scarborough.
[RELATED: Robinson talks welfare abuse with Howie Carr…]
Revelations regarding the use and abuse of Maine’s cash welfare program were made possible through The Maine Wire’s Freedom of Access Act request. The data, which has been made public in its entirety here, shows millions of dollars in questionable uses of taxpayer money.
Steve Robinson
Editor, Maine Wire
4 Comments
Those were all convenience stores.
What I find dishonest about these breathless, over-the-top revelations on The Maine Wire are the facts left out. The “writer ” asserts all these questionable purchases but fails to report that these may have been ATM withdrawals at these locations, ’cause surely had there been a direct link to a purchase, our fine Guv’nah would be campaigning for public lynchings! We’ve already had analysis of this report which shows abuse to be minuscule compared to overall expenditures, so again, the “reporter’s” assertion that millions in questionable uses is political rhetoric at its worst. And only serves to stir hate in the hearts of all your “Christian” righteous! Egads.
The idiocy of the welfare system has been going on for years. It continues with the rabid support of democrats. When working class people are buying hamburg and people with EBT cards are buying steak and lobster you have a problem. When people move here having never worked in this state and get every benifit available, yet elderly farm couples have to beg for heating oil, you have a problem. If those that have never worked a day in this state are dumped from the roles of qualified recipients the state could better take care of those that actually deserve it. Those that moved here for better welfare, one last payment, a bus ticket to where you want to move. It’s time to take care of our own and weed out those that are perpetual freeloaders!
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