It's not hard to figure out why California funds 32% of all the welfare cases in America. California's Social Services Department has the fewest restrictions for welfare applicants in the nation and pays the highest benefits. You need not even be a U.S. citizen to get on the dole in La-La-Land:

That's why California officials, extremely generous with tax dollars in the past, are trying to find a way to eliminate welfare payments to tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. The move, which has caused outrage among the state's powerful open borders lobby, would save a much needed $640 million a year.

An example of who the state cuts the monthly checks to is an unemployed 43-year old illegal immigrant from Mexico who gets $650 a month for each of her four children and about $500 in federal food stamps and other vouchers.

Somehow all this makes sense in Bizarro-Beach-Blanket Bingo-World. Now we find that those crafty Californians have even made it possible for welfare recipients to access their benefits directly from ATMs in cash from more than half the casinos in the state:

The casinos are listed on a Department of Social Services website that allows welfare recipients to search for addresses of ATMs where they can withdraw cash provided under the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program. The monthly grant ranges up to $694; most of the ATMs impose a withdrawal limit of $300 per day....The cash benefits...can be withdrawn and spent just about anywhere.

Each year California gets $3.7 billion from the federal government for (the Needy Families) program, while state and local governments kick in an additional $2.9 billion.

Obviously the bankrupt state of California can't afford to continue to pay for this absurdity. You know it will be left to us in flyover country to keep funding the gambling and crackpot thinking habits of the Sunshine Welfare state.

Of course it's not only the illegal aliens on welfare who are funding their casino junkets through the California Department of Social Services. But you still have to wonder: How do you say "Hit me" in Spanish?

Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target www.rightot.blogspotcom