Redmond, if it was simple as 'only make the card work for food and shelter' I'm sure that would be implemented already.
Posted by
ty97
Feb 7 '12, 15:05
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But there are a few issues:
1. Should it only be food and shelter? What about medicine? School supplies? Should they be allowed or forbidden? What's the master list, who determines it, how is it managed? Clearly strippers is an agreed "no" but there will be grey area as well.
2. Once that master list is defined how do you 'program it into computers' as you suggest? There isn't one central supercomputer that will know what people are buying. Rather, it will show the merchant, such as the bodega-type place across the street from me which sells a lot of food. And liquor, cigarettes, and lottery tickets too. The government will only see the shop name pop up, and the shop doesn't use a computer system.
For stores that do have computer systems (Target, Wal-Mart, etc) they can code products (and may already from my experience) to the allowed/not allowed list, but only big-box stores will have that infrastructure. Are only big-box store purchases allowed?
3. What about cash-only establishments? If someone wants to spend $20 on food a local shop, they will need to use an ATM machine. No way to track usage of that cash.
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We agree that there should be control, but we also need to agree that implementation of the controls is not nearly easy as the mission statement of the controls (i.e "stop abuse") and that it's only cost-effective to go after a certain percentage of the abuse.
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