Michigan Votes Forum

So if a person is getting much needed assistance because they have lost their job, their home, etc. and they win a big lottery that would get them OFF assistance Rep. Tom McMillin (R) would rather have them stay ON assistance.  Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

This bill is mean spirited and silly, as Pauline indicates. A person in need of food stamps or Medicaid is not a criminal, and does not give up their rights because of poverty and receiving aid from the state or federal government. If that was the case, then farmers shouldn't be allowed to collect lotto winnings either. Neither should CEO's of the auto companies and banks. Why just pick on the poor people?

This bill is not "mean spirited" and does not "pick on the poor people". The lottery is a tax on poor people already as it lures the poor and the desperate into risking money they don't have. I'm not rich and I've never bought a lottery ticket or put a penny in a slot machine. I agree totally with the premise of this bill.

Let's work on educating people how to work and save. It may not get done today, this week, or this year, but just maybe the next generation will learn the value of hard work and saving for the future.

What exactly is the premise of this bill?

 While we are at it let's also ban winnings for ANYONE on the public dole, which includes the ones who introduced this discriminatory legislation! It would also include all teachers, firefighters, police, public highway workers, military and retirees! I do not relish the idea of 'welfare' money going for someone to gamble with, but I am more afraid of politicians who wish to take individual liberty away! Anyone who supports this stupid bill should be booted out of office, PRONTO!

How 'bout if you are on any kind of assistance and you win....you are required to PAY BACK all monies you

had received!?

How about a farmer or a corporation CEO who wins has to pay back all of the government subsidies? 'Bout as crazy an idea as this bill is.

This is another example of our elected representatives having nothing better to do than worry about what people might be doing with their money. Someone else posted that the lottery, in all its forms, is a "poor man's tax" which is absolutely true. But how is it right to allow people on any sort of public assistance to PLAY but then not allow them to COLLECT?

Here's an idea: How about if this representative, and his colleagues, spend time figuring out how to create jobs and ways to get people OFF the public dole, and then we would not have to worry about how those people spend their money?

This bill is so anti-freedom!!!!! I think if you want to make any kind of law with lotto and welfare assisted people, make them pay back the assistance they received. I also don't like the idea that welfare receivers are using our tax money to gamble. But even if they did try to teach people how to save and what-not it wouldn't do any good. People that want to gamble are going to gamble. If we as a society are going to give our poor people money as a gift, then we can't tell them what to do with it. I just have a problem with the whole idea of the government telling people what they can and can't spend money on.