Following up on Moe’s point that Mickey Kaus notices Obama’s Porkulus eradicates the 1996 reform of welfare, the London Telegraph puts in perspective what has happened.
The dangers are beginning to pile up for the novice president and his struggling economic crew. Tim Geithner, his treasury secretary, tripped up with opaque attempts to explain how the administration would fix the banking crisis, while from every corner of the country there were alarming indications that increased government intervention in the lives of ordinary Americans could prove an invitation to waste.
In Wisconsin, the state that forged a pioneering path in welfare reforms in the 1990s, residents were astonished by a newspaper investigation that disclosed that a $340m (£236m) programme offering taxpayer-financed child care to low-income working parents was riddled with fraud and expensive loopholes.
In one case, a family of four sisters who had 17 children between them put all of them together, took it in turns to babysit them and over the past three years claimed $540,000 (£374,000) in perfectly legal state childcare subsidies.
Examples like that fuel American suspicion that so-called “big government” invariably turns out to be inefficient, expensive and easily exploitable. And there has been no bigger government action in the US than the stimulus package presented by Obama.
This suggests the Republicans have missed a key talking point on the stimulus that they can probably now capitalize on as Obama pursuing an even more expansionist government policy — Obama wants to bring back the era of the welfare queen. The Democrats are all too eager to throw out all the Republican reforms from the Gingrich revolution and risk an enraged electorate because of it.
Daniel Horowitz
Neil Stevens
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Jake Walker
How Ironic
scarlos (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:23PM EST (link)In their “Bi-partisan” Bill, the Democrats kill essentially the only really good bi-partisan measure to come out of Congress in the last 20 years.
Socialism is Oligarchy in disguise
Bill Clinton's Good Legacies
6eorge Jetson (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:33PM EST (link)1) NAFTA
2) The Pets.com assisted budget surplus
3) Welfare ReformWell...
Bill S (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:23PM EST (link)1) It’s really no surprised that we missed a talking point, seeing as we had virtually no opportunity to find the talking points, and
2) Of course he wants to bring back welfare queens – they’re bought-and-paid-for votes.
“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.” – David St. Hubbins
not all welfare queens voted for him
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 11:39PM EST (link)I’ve used food stamps plenty of times and have never been dem! I made phone calls for the gop in the fall and spent all day Friday pressing redial. That is wrong of you to group people together. I don’t know what is worse the liar or saying welfare= vote for Obama!
I am against these programs too. I think the government should give out organic wheat, beans and rice and that is it. No food stamps, no AFDC/TANF, no medical. It just drives the cost up for everyone. Now there is this culture of an “obligation” to have your child on mediciad if you don’t have insurance, and it’s with everyone, not just dems.
Even the private charities encourage people to apply for government help and refuse to help people who have not. People do not understand the difference between asking for help from a charity that people voluntarily give to vs a tax funded program. They see it as the same, they are worlds apart in my opinion.
OK now that is off my chest
Why don’t we look at real situations, not the extreme ones. I’m not including medical here just to keep it simple:
Look at how much a
Mother & Father with 4 children where the mother stays home, and the dad earns $7/hour @ 40 hours per week would received in food stamps, wic, and a close to $5,000 EIC each year.
Look at another situation
20 year old lives with parents, has no bills except for clothing and car insurance
She has 2 children
She recieves child support of $300 per month
She earns $5,000 per year with a part-time job
One child attends head start. The other one is in public school with funded after school care.
If her parents sign off that she prepares food seperately, she could receive food stamps for 3, and regardless of state assistance, the EIC.
Another one
Single mother of ___
She lives in projects, rent is $170 per month
She receives food stamps for ___ people
She works part time and makes $7,000 per year and receives the EIC
She receives daycare, after school care and uses the public schools.
Now the child tax credit will be like the EIC, on a sliding scale and refundable I think.
Look at some of the welfare to work programs, I know here in FL they were buying mothers cars..
I think the answer is marriage, I don’t know why this isn’t seen as a solution?
I believe perhaps you misunderstand what a "welfare queen" is
Bill S (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 12:02AM EST (link)Not all who collect welfare fall under that term.
“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.” – David St. Hubbins
I used to Work In the Florida Food Stamp Division...
rcov092 (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 12:48AM EST (link)uncovered organized criminal ring stealing thousands a year. Superiors said “we can never catch the supercriminals” I said, “here is his license number and address”.
They never did anything about the ring, but if I had a poor woman, 6 kids working to try to feed them and she didn’t report $40 in tips the Fraud and Recovery unit would cut her off an make her life miserable.
I finally had to quit, it was too Joseph Heller.
“Not One Red Dime for the NRSC or NRCC till they stop trying to elect liberals”
Join the RedState Strike Force
I know!
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 1:25AM EST (link)They cut off food stamps for any change, even if it’s way under the limit but they have these automatic ghosts that do these magic applications for medicaid into enternity even when the applicant did not apply!
God bless you, I always have sent our food stamp worker thank you cards after we were approved, they helped us so much.
War FOR Poverty
DerKrieger (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:31PM EST (link)There is no War on Poverty, just a War FOR Poverty. The old axiom, if you want less of something, tax it, if you want more of something, subsidize it holds true.
Welfare
Food Stamps
Section 8 housing
Free breakfast and lunch programs
WIC
SCHIP
Medicaid
Free child care
Is it any wonder we can’t win this “war”? We make it too easy to be poor.
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” – James Madison
Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” — John Locke, 1690
We NEED to make a thorough investigation
Rod_Patrick (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:33PM EST (link)of all the past programs that Mr. Obama still wants to continue to be funded by the Federal Government.
Once and for all, Americans must know the REAL details of the corruption and inefficiencies of all government programs, especially those which have been conceptualized and/or implemented by the Democrats and their cohorts.
No, no, no.
red4ever (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:40PM EST (link)We start the welfare queens argument again, we ridiculed for hating poor people (even though with the Healthcare Commisar it is poor people who won’t get needed care). that is a losing argument. The Dems won that one long ago. The MSM goes with it. We need to point out why our system is BETTER, not why their system sucks. Take the positive road.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Dante
I do hate poor people - if they won't do anything to help themselves
izoneguy (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:43PM EST (link)Most only know dependency – like a drug addict. Obama should be ashamed – here is the one man that could change the mindset – but he won’t – he will make it worse.
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
Dennis Miller has a good quote on this
AKSteveB (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 10:36PM EST (link)“I don’t mind helping the helpless, I do mind helping the clueless.”
Hell is other people – Sartre
Miller must have met....
rcov092 (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 12:49AM EST (link)some bureaucrats.
“Not One Red Dime for the NRSC or NRCC till they stop trying to elect liberals”
Join the RedState Strike Force
Same thing with Katrina
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 11:48PM EST (link)What a great opportunity leaders had to use that as a teaching moment. They could have taught people how to prepare for emergencies, how to create a 72 hour kit and some self reliant skills. Insteand the government was blamed instead of the individuals that did not take responsibility for themselves.
Actually, the positive road to real change is to focus on the Welfare Queens.
mbecker908 (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:55PM EST (link)They are so obvious, so over-the-top that focusing on them makes it obvious that you’re not aiming at hurting “the poor”. It worked like a charm last time and it’ll work again. Finding three or four generations of family members who’ve milked the system and never “worked” a day in their lives – and who are proud of it – is the thing that killed Clinton’s resolve to veto welfare reform in the 90′s and with any luck it might just torpedo Obama’s whole administration.
that isn't fair
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 12:51AM EST (link)OK there is a huge subculture of people like that, but many on welfare are not.
When I lived in projects I saw what you are talking about all the time.
What I see now with friends are single mothers that work but do not earn enough to buy food. Some are taking care of a relatives child too, $9/hour will only stretch so far even when you are very frugal.
I think strong families would prevent some of that. I know when my dad left my mom she moved in with my grandma. She had a place to live and her mom and sisters to help with childcare. She worked a low paying job but never had to recieve any welfare. I attended a private school for 1st – 8th too. We ate with the house for dinner and she really only had to buy luchnmeat and snacks so there was no need for food stamps even.
Fair? I don't do no stinking fair.
mbecker908 (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 7:48AM EST (link)“Fair” is beyond a “relative” word. I don’t think it’s “fair” to raise families for generations who live on welfare. I don’t think it’s “fair” to build and maintain public housing projects like Cabrini Green. I don’t think it’s “fair” to raise generations of kids whose role models have never held a job that didn’t have a term in prison as a “feature”.
Reread what I wrote. I’m not talking about “your mom”. Your family got by with help from family and it would appear turned out pretty well. “You” isn’t who I’m talking about.
OTOH, collecting welfare should be a cause of embarrassment.
There are
sdan (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 8:59AM EST (link)a lot of people out there who do need help. My family has been on public assistance before it was a great help. My husband got laid off right before Christmas which is a time when his field (Automotive repair) is at it’s slowest no one was hiring. In it’s beginnings the welfare programs were supposed to be temporary help but it has evolved into something else. There are also people who want to be able to get off of these rolls who can’t because of some of the rules. I remember reading a story years ago about a young woman with one child who was on public assistance that wanted to get out of the system because she did not want to raise her child like that. She applied for a grant to attend a college to get an education to improve her skills so she could get a better job. the welfare people required her to claim the grant as income and cut her benefits in half. As a result she had to return the grant because she could not afford to pay rent and feed herself and her child on half benefits. It broke my heart for this woman and her child.
The other side though that frustrates me is I took a friend to the welfare offices so she could apply and in the waiting room were three women. Grandmother, mother and pregnant daughter. Grandmother and mother were coaching daughter on how to answer questions to get the most money out of the system. I have to shake my head over this kind of thing. I think that is where most people get frustrated when there are healthy people who can work but choose to live on public assistance instead.
The government needs to completely revamp the system so that those who truly need the help can get it. A way for those who want to change their situations like the first lady I mentioned can do so and to purge the system of those who have no intention of ever doing for themselves because they don’t have to.
And once again Gov't is the problem
itrytobenice (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 12:58PM EST (link)not the solution.
Government can’t make a rule that income should be excluded or there would be that many more people gaming the system.
What should have happened in that young lady’s life is that the school should have worked to get her a scholarship as long as she would keep her grades up. And her church should have provided her with food, electricity and help with a place to stay until she could get through.
Individuals can keep their eyes on their gifts to make sure they aren’t being spent on drugs and are will provide other assistance as needed, e.g. child care, car repairs, etc.
But people assume the government is taking care of all of it and so don’t feel obligated to help.
Proper grammar saves lives.
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.
Good point...
sdan (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 1:27PM EST (link)no matter what revisions are made their will be those who abuse the system.
I guess it’s telling how pervasive the thought of public assistance has become. I’m a firm believer in self-reliance and helping your neighbors and my first thought was to retooling the system.
Thanks for the food for thought.
And where was her family?
Raven (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 1:30PM EST (link)A strong family would have solved the problem right off…
“If you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36
family
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 2:27PM EST (link)I agree wtih this 100%. That is the problem. If families were stronger, things like illness and divorce or even out of wedlock birth there would not be this abject poverty.
If a teenage girl has a baby out of welock or if she was older and divorced, if she lives at home, she can work part-time, attend distance learning at home, recieving the EIC and pell grants and finish her education. Shelter is a huge expense, if she can live at home that solves it.
Familis are so torn up though, look at how many teens do not even live with their parents. There is no place to go back to when someone let you sleep on their couch while you finished high school.
Also our society makes it almost impossible for young adults to be independent. I could never get an apartment at 18 or 19 without a paren’ts signature. They wanted me to be 21. So many girls end up with boyfriends just to have a place to live. If they are sexually active they are going to end up with kids. I’m not excusing this, I’m just saying we need to consider these things.
private help
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 2:14PM EST (link)She could have worked to get a scholarship too. You are right about paying for things directly, and that would also prevent her benefits from being cut off.
There is very little private help out there. There is this big huge myth of “services & referrals” out though.
I’ve seen this with my own church, people honestly believe there is this network of help out there to take care of everything. They appear very caring and I really believe they want to help, but their help is to say, call this # and get a referral or why don’t you do ___ and they really believe ___ will solve it. They believe I just haven’t tried or called. At first it hurt my feelings, I’ve just learned to becareful when diclosing things. I believe they are very sincere but do not have a clue. I wasn’t asking for help either, I mentioned something in a casual conversation (you know how you talk after church) and before I knew it everyone knew and had an “answer.”
Now there is temporary help for food and a past due power bill, but what you are talkng about where they will pay rent long term is rare. I’m sure some churches do it but it’s not common.
Now many cities have a “centralized” charity too. The problems is that it’s open to anyone, so members do not get priority for getting help. The woman who never volunteered a day in her life at a church might be ahead of the lady who taught Sunday school for 12 years who caught the flu and missed work for two weeks.
What is funny too is that Christmas gifts are popular to help with. Everyone wants to help with Christmas gifts but there is very little private help for things like rent. At Christmas time everyone wants to buy gifts. I don’t understand it.
If she was recieving a pell grant
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 1:48PM EST (link)she should have also recieved “work-study” which would make her automatically elgible for food stamps.
This was a while back but that is how it worked serveral years ago.
It depends what benefits she was recieving, any money at all will cut AFDC/TANF but her food stamps should not have changed that much.
It’s difficult to work with the system, any change they cut off food stamps, it’s really crazy. I looked into filing for bankruptcy and thought it was amazing that applying and getting approved for food stamps required more work paperwork than a bankruptcy filing.
I agree
reddog53 (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 9:56PM EST (link)We have to find a way to show that welfare is a dead end without going on about the welfare queens. Better we should find some former queens that are now successful and happy on their own.
Kathleen Parker and
DerKrieger (Diary) Sunday, February 15th at 10:20PM EST (link)Whoopi Goldberg both were welfare moms. Kathleen supports welfare reform, Whoopi naturally supports welfare “queenism”
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” – James Madison
Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” — John Locke, 1690
So we are back to the more babies you pop out the more welfare money you get
Scope (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 8:11AM EST (link)Nadia Suleman comes to mind.
EIC was expanded
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 2:29PM EST (link)What I don’t get is why is there so much drama around this now? It is already like this, he just expanded it. Look at any EIC table and you will see with two children you get more than if you have one. Just the EIC is already redistribution of wealth.
EIC has been like that since 2000
Raven (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 3:40PM EST (link)And it doesn’t give you any more with 3 or 4 than wth 2 qualifying children…
“If you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36
he expanded it
mom2oneson (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 3:59PM EST (link)I think now you get more with 3 like that is part of the stimulus.
So we are back to the more babies you pop out the more welfare money you get
Scope (Diary) Monday, February 16th at 8:11AM EST (link)Nadia Suleman comes to mind.