Sixty five year old Jackie Whiton, a cashier at a local convenience store, was in hot water with her boss recently. Apparently, she refused to sell cigarettes to an individual who attempted to pay for them with his Electronic Benefits Transfer card (the government’s preferred method of nutritional food assistance). Ms. Whiton didn’t realize that EBT allowed card holders to not only purchase food, but cigarettes and alcohol as well. When she was made aware of the law by her boss, she held fast to her position, telling her boss that she would refuse to sell cigarettes to anyone attempting to make payment with EBT/Food Stamps.

She was promptly terminated.

Ms. Whiton maintains that she’s all for the government’s nutritional food assistance program – when it’s used to for essential goods… like food:

“This is what the taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars are going toward,” she said. “There are a few people of course who are against me, and they are probably card holders.”

…

“I am not against the EBT (food stamp) grocery cards. I am not,” she said. “But a woman can’t even buy toilet paper or tampons with those.”

Source: Union Leader

Bob, of Drinking with Bob, passionately explains the general sentiment and outrage of the majority of Americans who have their hard earned income confiscated on a weekly basis so that those ‘less fortunate’ among us are able to buy smokes and booze:

She can’t believe it. She says “I don’t care, I’m not sellin’ cigarettes to some kid and then letting him pay for them with his friggin’ food stamp money. I don’t care if it is legal.”

She winds up getting fired.

Are you friggin’ kidding me?

I don’t think anybody in this country is against food stamps. We realize, people fall on hard times. You want to help those people. But you want to help them with milk, you want to help them with eggs, you want to help them with bread.

Are you seriously telling me we go to work everyday, bust our freakin’ balls, the government takes money out of our checks and they’re giving it to some guy so he can sit in a room with a bottle of Old Grand Dad, a carton of Pall Malls, playing video poker all day – and it’s legal?

Are you insane?!?

…

If our forefathers were alive today, you know what they’d be doing on the fourth of July?

They’d be blowin’ their freakin’ brains out.

Are you freakin kidding me?!

Nearly 50 million Americans are currently receiving food stamp benefits, with roughly half of them being approved for assistance during President Obama’s term. And, if the government has its way, even more people will be added, as recently evidenced by the Department of Agriculture’s new Eat Right and Get Fit food stamp advertising campaign (which has cost tax payers at least $3 million).

In other news, the US national debt as of this writing is officially estimated at $15.7 Trillion (unofficially it’s closer to $75.9 Trillion, with some estimates as high as $200 Trillion).

Your share of that debt is $246,000.