Opinion

Shelly’s pole position

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has agreed to discourage the use of welfare cash for booze, lap dances and gambling.

Or so an aide says.

That’s an important distinction, given the historic disconnect between the speaker’s public pronouncements and what’s really on his mind.

In this instance, it took a series of reports by The Post — showing withdrawals made with welfare cards (Electronic Benefits Transfer cards) at ATMs in bars, strip joints and such — to prompt the pledge.

No doubt, much of the cash that’s withdrawn at these places is spent on the premises — for goods and services for which welfare was never intended.

A Senate bill last year would have banned such withdrawals. But Silver declined to act on it — until this week.

What took so long? Nutty as it sounds, Silver and fellow Assembly Democrats apparently have no desire to discourage ill-advised spending of welfare cash.

Indeed, one Assembly Dem, Richard Gottfried, actually equates welfare with government paychecks: “This is America, and if somebody wants to propose that policemen, firefighters . . . and other people paid with government funds be restricted as to what they use their money for,” he said, “I wouldn’t support it.”

Gottfried, of course, was an arrogant twit when he went to Albany 40 years ago, and the fact that he can’t distinguish between a government salary and a government handout suggests that nothing has changed.

For his part, Silver seems more worried about losing $120 million in federal welfare aid, absent a new law, than about the lunacy of having the state promote taxpayer-paid spending on vice by the “poor.”

Plus, his aide, Michael Wyland, hedged as to the timing — saying the Assembly would act only once federal rules are “finalized.”

Which might mean never.

And with Silver, any bill that is passed always needs to be checked for missing teeth.

But Silver’s vow to act — on the heels of The Post’s reports — is a welcome first step.

Albany has no business pushingvice.

And strip clubs and gin joints are no place to make welfare withdrawals.

Now let’s see how Silver follows through.