(Vermont) In House vote on welfare limit, a right turn on a left issue

[FrodosPet]

http://vtdigger.org/2013/03/29/in-house-vote-on-welfare-limit-a-right-turn-on-a-left-issue/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-house-vote-on-welfare-limit-a-right-turn-on-a-left-issue

by Jon Margolis | March 29, 2013

After an hour of polite, but heartfelt debate, the overwhelmingly Democratic and largely liberal House of Representative of overwhelmingly Democratic and largely liberal Vermont declined Thursday to allow poor young mothers to stay on welfare for more than 60 months of their lives.

By a vote of 36 to 98, the House rejected an amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill proposed by Rep. John Moran of Wardsboro which would have exempted “able-to-work” recipients of “Reach Up” grants from a new 60-month lifetime limit if they “are in compliance with … Reach Up program regulations.”

The recipients, almost all of them young, unmarried mothers with small children would “receive comprehensive family development plan reviews every 90 days to identify and remove employment barriers.”

~ snip ~

In the debate, some of those Vermont Democrats, including some with reliably liberal voting records, argued that the time limits would end up being more beneficial to the young women than would staying on welfare indefinitely. The 60-month limit idea, one lawmaker said, “came from the Reach Up caseworkers themselves,” the people who know the recipients well and are working to help them.

~ snip ~

------------------------------------------------------------

This is a bizarre article, saying that the real economic elite are more OK with welfare than liberals because it is cheaper than riots and maintains a subclass of working poor to draw from when times are good.