MI man wins lottery and stays on food stamps

[Selcopa]

Hey its been a while but I heard about this and thought I'd get some more opinions on it.

Michigan Man Still Receives Food Stamps After Winning $2 Million Jackpot - FoxNews.com

The cliffs notes, a man in Michigan wins the lottery for $2 million, takes the lump sum for 850k, the man was on food stamps at the time. So he called his social worker and let them know "Hey I won alot of money, do i need to turn my bridge card(food stamps) in?" the social worker told him, No you can keep using it.

‪Lotto Winner Fights for Food Stamps&#x202crlm; - YouTube

My cousin is the lawyer on the case which is how this came to my attention.

The man is now being prosecuted for fraud(which is why he needed a lawyer)

Maybe it's because my cousin is the lawyer in this case, but I haven't been able to be so quick to demonize this man for collecting the food stamps after winning the lottery. The man called his social worker about using the card, they gave him the green light, so he continued to use it, now he's being charged even though he's played by the rules.

This all happened over a year ago, and the most ironic part is that around 2 months ago(as said in the video) he STILL qualified for the food stamps.

You can get on your high ethical horse and say "Oh I wouldn't use food stamps if i had that much money", I would use them, if the rules said I could use them then yeah, its an addition $500 a month in revenue I would gladly take it if offered to me. I don't think the man is bad for taking the food stamps. I'll criticize the system, but not the man.

Thoughts?

[Lily]

if he's allowed then he's allowed nothing more too it really, though i cant see why he'd even feel the need to carry on, not like he cant afford to eat, stingy ****

[Rocky]

he may as well stay on them, the chances of him spending all of his money on hookers and cocaine is so high that he's most likely going to lose all of that money again, in turn putting him back to where he began within I'd say 12 months.

Like the simple yet effective saying, "easy come, easy go." same with money.

[Judge Magistrate]

I'm thinking that if he was told it was okay, no problem. He just seems really cheep by still using them though. It is a little weird that he still wants to use the stamps, I don't get it. To each his own I suppose.

[Selcopa]

My grandpa always taught me "If you have to pay a tax, pay the tax, if you qualify for a benefit, take the benefit"

Alot of people really seem to hate this guy for doing it, but I gotta blame the government on this one, it's been over a year, if you can't get together and change the law to stop this type of thing. You failed.

Plus if you factor in that he paid 1.15 million in taxes on the lotto, and he's pulled out, $500x14 = $7000 via his bridge card, suddenly him 'wasting the tax payers money' just doesn't seem to cut it for me.