A Maine mayor wants to shame welfare recipients by listing their names and addresses on a public website.
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Macdonald also said he would push for a bill that would bar the state from paying benefits to families for additional children born after a recipient has been receiving welfare payments and cap welfare payments after a certain time period. “After all, the public has a right to know how its money is being spent”. “Why are they treated differently than pensioners?” he wrote. (A rhetorical question).
Macdonald was quoted as writing that “liberal, progressive legislators” have convinced constituents to remain in the dark about welfare payments and have made the poor “a victimized, protected class”. “Who are you to question it?” he wrote in the piece. Macdonald wrote. “Just shut up and pay!”
But that’s not all. The site would also contain recipients’ addresses, as well as the benefits they are collecting and how long they have been receiving assistance for. Alain Nahimana, Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition Coordinator, called the mayor’s proposal short-sighted and shameful and said Macdonald is playing politics. “For three and a half years, I’ve been putting all kinds of welfare laws, I’ve been submitting them”.
Macdonald said he is exhausted of generational welfare recipients who move to Lewiston “to play the system” and that his proposals were created “basically to stop these people from coming here”.
However, the Portland Press Herald noted that he can’t submit a state bill as he is not a state lawmaker.
“Unfortunately, with today’s economy, it’s hard to get off the program because your money is going to rent and everything else that you need, and that little bit of food stamps we get is what keeps us alive”, Sheena Dingledine said.
The mayor has asked one Democrat and one Republican senator to introduce the legislation in the state legislative session.
“Absolutely not. That’s exploitation of people who are already down on their luck”, Lewiston resident Cindy Hobson said.
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“I don’t see why we would want to put together these types of barriers to make people feel ashamed and unwilling to access help”, Gattine said. Macdonald later attempted to clarify his remarks, saying that they were taken out of context and that he never said anything disparaging about the Somali community.
