An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Another Day, Another Fiasco
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Chinese Proverb
I guess the current resident of the White House doesn’t believe in self reliance, or even encouraging it, since he’s obviously doing his best to make sure as many people as possible are dependent upon the government. No jobs, record number of food stamp recipients, and now no requirements to get taxpayer money. Isn’t it odd that for more than 150 years, the Republicans have been trying to get folks OFF the plantation, and for those same years, the Democrats have been doing everything they can to keep them there, or shove them back. We’re not talking about skin color here, we’re talking total government dependence, and the need for the Democrats to control the masses. Raise up your kids to believe that government is the answer to all their problems, that it will take care of you, and you raise up kids who EXPECT handouts, and if they don’t get what they want, they’ll take it!
Gee, I dunno Questionman (OWS moron), sure sounds like socialism/communism to me!
Obama’s Imperial Presidency Guts Welfare Reform
The Foundry
The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the Clinton-era reform.
While this real news occurred yesterday, most of the media remained fixated on political ads and speeches, letting a major and unilateral shift in America’s welfare system go nearly unreported.
Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Heritage Foundation played a pivotal role in building bipartisan consensus for the reform and providing many of the recommendations that became part of the law. The whole point was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.
This reform was very successful. TANF became the only welfare program (out of more than 70) that promoted greater self-reliance. It moved 2.8 million families off the welfare rolls and into jobs so that they were providing for themselves. Child poverty fell, and single-parent employment rose. Recipients were required to perform at least 20–30 hours per week of work or job preparation activities in exchange for the cash benefit.
Now, Obama’s HHS is claiming that it can waive those work requirements that are at the heart of the law, and without Congress’s consent.
When it established TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from waiver authority. They explicitly did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of HHS bureaucrats. In a December 2001, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that there was no authority to override work and other major requirements: “Effectively, there are no TANF waivers,” it reported.
But that did not stop the Obama Administration, which has been increasing welfare spending at an alarming rate already. President Obama has added millions to the welfare rolls, and his Administration has come under fire lately for its efforts to expand and add more Americans to the food stamp program.
This is a chronic problem: Over the past two decades, welfare spending has grown more rapidly than Social Security and Medicare, education, and defense. The TANF reform was one small step in the direction of reducing Americans’ dependence on government programs and getting them back on their feet. Cutting its work component is likely to unnecessarily swell the ranks of welfare recipients and with no way to pay for it.
Heritage experts Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley explained further in their comprehensive analysis of yesterday’s announcement:
In the past, state bureaucrats have attempted to define activities such as hula dancing, attending Weight Watchers, and bed rest as “work.” These dodges were blocked by the federal work standards. Now that the Obama Administration has abolished those standards, we can expect “work” in the TANF program to mean anything but work. The new welfare dictate issued by the Obama Administration clearly guts the law.
Obama certainly didn’t tell people he was going to gut welfare reform when he was running for President in 2008—and why would he? “Welfare horror stories helped elect Ronald Reagan,” wrote Mickey Kaus of The Daily Caller. “A promise to ‘end welfare as we know it’ elected President Clinton…And in 2008, Barack Obama didn’t dare suggest that he wanted to do what he has done today.”
While the 1996 welfare reform successfully moved people from welfare into work, it did not “end welfare as we know it.” Now, however, the Obama Administration has ended welfare reform as we know it. The President cannot hide his disastrous unemployment record by depriving Americans of the hope of a job. He should immediately reverse this course, and offer constructive ideas for economic growth rather than government dependence.
“In June, 80,000 American workers managed to get a job, and a third of those were temp workers. On the other hand, more workers — 85,000 — quit the work force and went on Social Security disability. ”
Keep your powder dry, we may soon have a war between those that work for a living and those that want a living for not working.
I fear you are quite correct. I’ve always thought the Boy Scout motto of ‘Be prepared!” was a real good idea.
Things could be worse.
In England they want to give wellfare folks the right to ‘sue’ the govt for more money!!!!
$37,000 pounds is about $55,000 US, that is more than the average American wage-earner is paid.(about $50,000)
” The human right to claim welfare payments: British jobless could sue for better payments under controversial plan
Human rights law will be extended to include the right to claim benefits and enjoy a comfortable standard of living courtesy of the taxpayer under plans unveiled last night.
A Government panel of experts is considering whether Labour’s Human Rights Act – which is already hugely controversial – should be extended to include so-called ‘socio-economic rights’.
This would allow the jobless to take the Government to court if ministers did not provide a minimum standard of living.
Earlier this week, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggested a family of four needed an income of almost £37,000 to have a satisfactory lifestyle.”
Are you freakin’ kidding me???? *sputter* I can’t even think of anything more absurd. I’m sure given the time, I could, but…. What planet are these people on?????