Welfare Recipients In This State Just Received Horrible News According to recent reports, and Illinois legislator has just introduced new measures designed to crackdown on welfare recipients in an attempt to eliminate welfare abuse. The legislature was sponsored by Republican State Rep. Bill Mitchell. We need to pass strong welfare reforms to put a stop to the waste, fraud and abuse in the welfare system, Mitchell said in a statement. With 4.7 million Illinoisans on welfare, more than one-third of our citizens are receiving taxpayer-funded benefits. We simply cannot afford to do nothing. Mitchell is also calling for legislation to block undocumented immigrants from receiving government assistance. Welfare should not be a way of life, nor should it be generational, he continued. Big government has institutionalized poverty by massively expanding the welfare state, which is cruel to the people it entraps and further disincentivizes work. Mitchell claims that the current system has a 10 percent fraud rate. What do you think? Do you support these new measures? 