But not by politicians. Nope. The deed was done by the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF). It comes after

federal officials advised DCF that the withdrawal limit appeared to violate some tenets of the federal law that funds the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

This is something I wrote about here and here.

The latest injury is a law the Kansas legislature wrote and the Governor signed which limits the amount of money welfare recipients (who aren’t getting huge sums from the state anyway) can withdraw using their welfare debit card at an ATM to $25 a pop. This presents several problems for the poor recipient: first, the idiot legislators themselves seem never to have used ATMS, or they’d know the machines don’t distribute money except in $20 increments. No $5 bills are stocked. Second, each usage of the card in the machine generates a fee for the bank that owns it. The more cash is required (know anyone whose rent is $20? I didn’t think so), the more fees are generated, which means less money for the recipient to spend on food and shelter.

Yesterday, the secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families said the Feds objected to the limit, saying it limited recipients’ access to the cash assistance they’d been allotted.

Fortunately the Kansas legislature is not in session any longer this year so it can’t write any more stupid mean-spirited laws targeting the poorest members of their state.