Death and Taxes (1948) by David Dodge

Death and Taxes (1948) by David Dodge, Cover art by Rudolph Belarski.

We Accept Party Animals

This week a customer in his early 20s comes through my line and makes a purchase using his EBT card.

For those who do not know what that is, an EBT card is basically a debit card connected to a Food Stamp account. People in need are allotted by the State a certain amount of funds so they can eat and pay bills. Many EBT accounts allow the user to receive cash back from their purchase so they can pay for things they couldn't otherwise by debit card, like the rent. There is nothing inherently wrong with needing a hand every now and then. As I am fully aware, things happen. I was almost there myself back during The Bad Times.

The purchase? A pack of cigarettes and cash back of $100. The employees and customers who witnessed this were not amused.

But wait, there's more! A few minutes later the same customer comes back through the line with a cart full of beer and party supplies. He pays for it using the cash I gave him as change from his previous purchase.

Now I have some gripes with this:

1) Our tax dollars are being used so some kid can buy cigarettes and booze. A system set up to aid people in dire straights is underwriting a party.

2) In my opinion, anyone on food stamps should not be shopping in this community. It's a free country, but the prices are on average higher at stores located in affluent areas. Less than four miles away are many grocery stores with prices much lower than this one for the same products. If I was given a limited amount of funds each month to feed and house my family I'd want to stretch those dollars as far as I could. The customer also declined to use his store discount card, which would serve to drop the prices by an order of magnitude on the alcohol. It is likely the guy didn't want an electronic trail of his monetary purchases generated and wanted to remain anonymous in the event he was audited.

3) My California state tax return this year will be in the form of an I.O.U. because the government is supposedly broke. Yet somehow California can afford to issue people EBT cards that have little or no accountability in regards to their purchases.

4) I mean, seriously. WTF?