2 Republican Senators Are Worried that PA Terrorists Are Getting Welfare
Are there any Pennsylvanians on the federal terrorist watchlist receiving welfare assistance? And if so, how can we prevent them from getting it? Those are the questions two Republican state senators–Joe Scarnati and David Argall–posed to the state’s Department of Welfare chief this week. They asked, by the way, because the Boston Marathon bombing suspects received state aid in Massachusetts, which for obvious reasons, set off a conservative firestorm. Here’s the problem with such a policy.
1. It’d be very hard, politically and legally, to change the welfare laws in the state to exclude people for being suspected of terrorist proclivities. Governor Corbett’s means-testing was controversial enough…
2. If such a policy were enacted, said suspected terrorists would stop receiving welfare benefits. And soon enough they would figure out they were on the federal terrorist watchlist. Which would defeat much of the point of having them on the list at all.
