Mayor wants a public database of welfare recipients and their addresses

The Mayor of Lewiston, Maine, has figured out the answer to society’s ills, and it comes in the form of public shaming.

Lewiston, Maine, Mayor Bob MacDonald said members of the public have the right to know who is receiving taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.

Macdonald said that he and his colleagues plan to submit a bill that asks for the creation of a site where his humiliating goal can be carried out.

“After all, the public has a right to know how its money is being spent”, he said in a column for the Twin City Times. He said Maine has a website listing pension amounts issued to state workers, and questioned why other recipients of state revenue are protected. Why are [welfare recipients] treated differently than pensioners? Macdonald wrote. “Just shut up and pay!” “It’s none of your business how much of your money they get and spend”.

As the Washington Post noted, this is not the first time that proposals related to welfare recipients has caused controversy.

Macdonald has targeted welfare recipients before, declaring back in 2013 that anyone who came to Lewiston for welfare would be prosecuted.

Macdonald admits that he would need a state representative or senator to introduce such a bill, and says he has discussed it with a couple of lawmakers.

“We will be submitting a bill to the next legislative session asking that a website be created containing the names, addresses, length of time on assistance and the benefits being collected by every individual on the dole”, Macdonald wrote.

But the Lewiston mayoral election is coming up in November, and a young progressive challenger has already broken the state record for mayoral campaign fundraising.

Yet other recipients of state revenues are shielded.

“Mayor Macdonald has been in office for four years and he’s done nothing to lower our poverty rate and make our city better”, Chin told the paper.

Of people receiving benefits, he said: “Go into the grocery store”.

He added he doesn’t care whether some people who rightly receive benefits could be hurt, saying: “Some people are going to get harmed but if it’s for the good of everybody, that’s the way it is”.

Robert Macdonald does not have the power to create the welfare database himself, but called on the state’s legislature to do it. He also questioned what kind of people would be standing in the was of publicizing the information.

“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.