Welfare fraud

“I have this great idea …”

Stephen Green, PJMedia:

This California Dem Wants to Legalize $25K Welfare Fraud

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas … recently surveyed the rubble of her Los Angeles County district and said to herself, "I know just how to make this rubble bounce."

Smallwood-Cuevas just introduced SB560, also known as the Legalized Welfare Fraud Bill, or at least it should be. According to L.A.-based Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, SB560 "would decriminalize welfare fraud below an amount of $25,000."

What's stealing a measly $24,999 among friends? Honestly, it could happen to anyone, and, if SB560 becomes law, it probably will. 

If I'm being completely honest, almost anyone could have come up with legalizing five-figure welfare fraud. But Smallwood-Cuevas is a particularly hardworking and creative Democrat, so she didn't end things there. Under SB560, prosecutions for attempted welfare fraud would be prohibited, and it would also become illegal to prosecute someone for perjury if they accidentally got charged for welfare fraud and then lied to prosecutors about it.

"Sorry you didn't get away with your welfare fraud this time, Bucko, but that was a real nice story you made up and better luck next time," isn't how DAs approach these things in the rest of the country, but this is California we're talking about.

SB560 essentially provides one of those personal force fields from "Dune" to protect welfare cheats from pretty much anything except for slow-moving knives and laser blasts. Not that I'm advocating stabbing or laser-blasting welfare cheats. Or at least not yet.

Not to be outdone, Assemblyman Nick Schultz and his fellow Democrats on the Public Safety Committee this week blocked "a proposal that would make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-old children for sex."

You have to ask yourself, "Why?" Why would Democrats proactively encourage welfare cheats and even would-be welfare cheats? Why would they block a bill making it a felony to traffic a 16-year-old girl for sex?

I already told you. If there's a way to legalize or incentivize bad behavior, they will find it. And if they control a legislature in large enough numbers, they will enact it and award themselves bonus points for absurdity or being just plain wrong.

It can't be easy always finding creative new ways to make things worse, and yet they never struggle to find fresh faces like Lola Smallwood-Cuevas or Nick Schultz to blaze those trails to societal suicide.

They're the hardest-working people in politics.

(I certainly trust Stephen Green to get his facts right, but I still went to the original source, the proposed bill itself. Green has described it accurately.)