I recently listened to Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal about Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. I hope the entire Legislature will work with him on this matter.

I wholeheartedly agree, but I also want to know why the policy of food stamps being used for anything other than food ever got changed.

Going to a plastic card facilitated use in grocery stores, but I have no idea why anybody came up with the idea of allowing recipients to use their benefit card to pull cash. Not being able to do so, would be the only way to enforce the idea of not being able to use the benefit for tobacco, alcohol and gambling and junk food. Otherwise, all one would have to do is pull cash and do whatever one would like with that money.

I know that, in the past, when paper stamps were used for food only, recipients faced a hardship in that they couldn’t buy toilet paper, soap and detergent, diapers, etc. There should be an allowance for those necessary items. The bill also should include a prohibition on soda and junk food as well.

I do hope that my two cents worth can be added to this new bila, and that Maine legislators will realize that, as long as a new bill is in the offing, these ideas merit consideration.

Louise Marcoux Bowker

Waterville


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