so...it's been almost 12 years. how's welfare reform working for us?

[ulysses]

I just finished rereading Nickel and Dimed. We like to think - we're taught to think - of issues like poverty as discrete things that happen in vacuums as the result of easily definable, blame-able actions. You're poor because you won't get a job. It's upsetting to consider what effect a lack of winter heat might have on a child's ability to achieve in school, and therefore on his ability to pull himself up by his fabled bootstraps.

And it's not as if we lack for alternatives to the easy out of blaming the victim. Yet, that's what we did in 1996, and we did it for votes. No, that's not right - we didn't blame the poor. We fucked the poor and then blamed them for their own fucking, all in the name of a desperate hope that the right wing would stop being mean to us.

So, how's that worked out for us? As a party, as an ideology, as a nation?

[EFerrari]

1. You have to wonder where all those welfare queens parked their caddys

when their check were cut, don't you? :sarcasm:

[ulysses]

2. why, in the driveways of their public housing mcmansions, of course!

;-)

[readmoreoften]

48. Because it's the poor who have all our money.

:crazy:

To paraphrase a comedian I once heard:

Talk to any conservative and what'll he tell you: You know what's bankrupting our country?! Damn welfare cheats, that's who!!!! What a marvelous analysis of the problem: it's the poor who have all of our money. If we cracked open the top layer of Detroit, underneath we'd find a city of gold...

[lonestarnot]

3. Did anyone learn anything yet?

:(

[EFerrari]

4. How many millions has the Pentagram "lost" while

Republicans and Republican democrats crow over "welfare reform"?

It's DISGUSTNG.

[lonestarnot]

6. sfp2K don't you mean billions, 8 billion that I recall in 1 loss alone.

Just gone zippo nada, and nobody "knows where it went." hmmmmmmf.

[ulysses]

7. you can't throw money at the problem!

Especially if we don't know where it is!

[EFerrari]

9. When I do that, I get fined by my bank.

It's just unfucking believable. Halliburton employees playing touch football with bundles of bills and American families going homeless at a higher rate than other people. Whole families -- mostly single moms with kids.

And that reality is why I hate CSPAN Theater. Because every day I walk by people living in the bushes out here by Ocean Beach and these priviliged, insulated assholes in the Senate, the most useless organ of our government, intone endless bullshit WHILE they vote to fuck us over.

I don't think I said that bitterly enough. lol

[ulysses]

10. quit sugarcoating it.

;-)

[EFerrari]

11. You just have to wonder. These geniuses aren't as smart as they think

they are.

The backlash will be bad.

At some point having a bubblehead on a cable channel telling us everything is just fine will not work.

What made you post this? :)

[ulysses]

12. I just twitch every so often.

Tend to post angry populist stuff when I do. :)

[EFerrari]

13. Got it. Me, too.

I agree with you that this country is so much mo bettah since Ronald Reagan declared war on poor people everywhere.

We've never gotten over the damage that mendacious @sshole did. And, it's strange because it's like we lost our memory of what worked for us before he came into power.

America: Blaming the Victim since 1776! Because it worked so well.

[lonestarnot]

30. kick

[ulysses]

5. probably not.

Except the poor. I imagine that they've learned even more about the political process.

[lonestarnot]

8. Well I hope we (the poor) have and can manage it against its own abuse!

What 60 percent of the country's wealth now controlled by the top 1%? Disgusting!

[Prophet 451]

25. No, and they won't either

It's the great tragedy of American politics: The liberal ideas are high-minded but wordy, the conservative ideas are greedy but simple and the electorate is too poorly educated, intellectually lazy or just disinterested to listen carefully.

[Jed Dilligan]

14. Oh, we've learned

We've learned that shuffling the kids of welfare moms around between them and calling them childcare workers is effective at making the number of people on welfare seem to be smaller to some people.

[fasttense]

15. We learned to open homeless shelters at half the cost for welfare.

We learned to look the other way when we see a homeless person.

We've learned you can close off any safety net for We the People as long as we are willing to let them suffer.

We learned that the American people are all too willing to let a poor, disenfranchised minority suffer but wont let a wealthy Bear Stearns stockholder take a hit for a bad investment.

We Americans have learned a lot but most of it involves letting someone else suffer the consequences.

[bobbolink]

31. Actually, that's not really true.

A DUer recently posted the comparison of cost between shelters and permanent housing, and the housing, just as with prison, is much less!

I don't have the figures handy right now... I hope that DUer will pipe up and post those figures.

"We Americans have learned a lot but most of it involves letting someone else suffer the consequences. "

That's really profound! Great sentence! :yourock:

[PA Democrat]

16. Public schools are seeing increasing numbers of homeless students

No one wants to talk about the impact of poverty and homelessness on a child's ability to succeed in school. We point the finger at teachers and legislate new ways to punish (yes, NCLB is punitive) schools that fail to live up to the goals set, but the truth is that we as a society are failing those schools, teachers, students, and the entire country.

I've seen a few news accounts on the issue of homeless students as of late, like this one:

Weekday mornings, a steady stream of buses pulls up on Third Street in downtown Minneapolis. Each inches forward until a paper in the window identifying its route is visible through the gable-shaped arch in front of People Serving People. Up to 70 school buses a day pick up kids at this homeless shelter, located just off Portland Avenue.

Because most kids don't want others knowing their situation, the Minneapolis school district has devised complicated bus schedules to make such shelters the first stop in the morning and the last in the afternoon.

Many of the parents waiting in the vestibule wear mismatched or ill-fitting clothes, but the children are neat as pins. A little girl pressed against the glass front door is a study in pink, right down to the pompoms on her pastel shoes. A pre-teen in a fur-trimmed jacket and new Timberlands simultaneously finishes off her homework and a plastic foam cup of diced pancakes. Once they get to school, it's unlikely anyone can tell where they started the day.

Public seldom sees the tough task facing schools
This invisibility might be face-saving, but it's also something that has kept the number of homeless students — and the magnitude of their problems — hidden from the general public and from the teachers and school staff who most need to know what would help a struggling child.




http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/03/31/1324/many_schools_face_major_hidden_problem_--_helping_homeless_students_succeed

[OzarkDem]

17. Deregulation of utilities has been a disaster for the poor

In the state I live in, most people have seen their energy bills double. At a time when medical, food and other costs are also rising, people are put in an impossible situation.

Yet utility companies are reaping record profits. FDR created the public utility system for a reason - to keep costs under control and the infrastructure providing it intact and functioning.

Special programs to give discounts to low income consumers only end up shifting some of the cost to taxpayers. We have to re-regulate utilities.

[LWolf]

18. It didn't.

:grr:

[mrcheerful]

19. Yet again people miss out on the obvious, america is the land of

illusion and perception. Few americans can grasp the complex life of the poor, disabled or elderly. All 3 are seen by the majority as living the good life. With the poor it's how people see a few spending the food stamps on expensive meats, snacks etc etc, then think well I work and can't afford those things why are the poor using tax dollars for things I can't buy. Yet they have no ideal if that person is on welfare or if that person is involved with foster care, ( yes when you take in foster kids, you get money and food stamps from the state to care for them, no matter what your income is ) or a drug dealer, using food stamps automatically means your on welfare. Same with auto's, the majority don't know that one of the things welfare does is limit the cost of your auto's, in my state your auto better not cost over $1,500.00, if you have a car worth more then you receive nothing from welfare unless you sell the car then show where every dime you got from the car went. Yet how many of these people do you see sitting at home?, well here they have to go to Work First daily. Thats the real thing you don't know the poor's daily lives or what they are doing and people assume they are living the high life by what they think they see. This state a woman and 1 kid get a $400 cash grant and $290 in food stamps a month.

The disabled are another group that are seen as free loaders, come on everyone knows or has at least one friend or family member thats getting SSDI and/or SSI and that person they know 100% is not disabled. It's funny how a stock boy job gives a person the right to make medical diagnosis's without even seeing that persons medical records. Heck on one blog there is a woman who says anyone that can type on a blog can work but then the same woman also said that anyone who can get on line can't be poor. Those on SSI also get another kick in the teeth because SSI is a form of welfare so they also get people in their face about driving expensive cars and the whole smear, they also get food stamps so its a double whammy. Few realize that because it takes so long to get SSI and SSDI, up to 3 years, ( unlike welfare where you can go in and come out with a check and food stamps in a few hours )the government pays them back pay which many use to buy a car new enough to last them for many years. Again tell me how $630 to $650 a month lets one live the high life, btw, just how many days do you think these people don't eat?

The same goes for the elderly. Welfare reform came about because of these myths and plain good old jealousy, regardless of the economic situation those with jobs somehow believe that theres plenty of good paying jobs for everyone and only those to lazy to work go on welfare. I've heard people bitch and complain about the job loss in this state yet turn around and say that theres still plenty of good paying jobs because all one has to do is hope a train and go to another state. Why? Because Run away Ronnie said it was so.

How is welfare reform working? Fine if you work in the prison industry or law enforcement. Because so many are left out on the street, around this city scrapping has become the thing for poor to earn extra money, though now that metal and car batteries have gone up so has the theft of catalytic coveter's and batteries. For those who have to live on the crap it sucks.

[Prophet 451]

26. Preach it, brother

I'm a Brit and I'm noticing the same attitudes becoming more prevelent here: The implication that the unemployed or disabled are lazy scroungers. Here, you can theoretically claim Unemployment indefinatly if you can show that you are actively trying to find a job but I know more than a few people who believe that anyone who can't get a job in X months (usually three, sometimes six) is obviously either unemployable or not trying and should be left to starve. Likewise, the impression of those claiming Disability benefits is that they're lazy workshys and gods help you is you have a mental illness! You're just a scrounging malingerer who doesn't want to work!

I always wonder: Have any of these people ever tried living on welfare? I did, for several years and trust me, if you're honest (which I wasn't but knew plenty who were), it's bloody difficult to make ends meet.

[lastliberalintexas]

43. I love the incongruity of such a rightfully bitter post

being made by Mr. Cheerful. Great post.

[mrcheerful]

45. Lol, sorry if I came off bitter, just I have a life time worth of hearing these types of things.

When I was a kid in school I had teachers tell me it was a waste of their time teaching me because my handi caps would make me a burden on the tax payers. In my late teens early 20's I heard we can't hire you because you can't do the work, or I got hired then after 3 to 6 months was let go because I couldn't handle the job. At the ripe old age of 28, ( I was working for the Rehabilatation sheltered work shop being evaluated to see what type of job I could handle, yeah after 10 years the Rehab decided to find out why I wasn't able to keep a job ) I was told that my disabilities were sever enough that I shouldn't have been working to begin with and I was able to get SSDI and SSI. Never mind the years I was on welfare or the fact that because I was being tested, my mentally handi capped wife had to go through the first type of work first program and had another mental handi capper who was a tad brighter then my soon to be ex conned her into leaving me for him. How about family members telling me that I could work and collect SSDI, because they knew someone either blind or in a wheel chair that worked. Bitter? Maybe a little, but with a life time of dealing with biggoted assholes how does one not get some bitterness? I'm much better now having learned I don't care what others think of me, all that matters is what I think of me.

[lastliberalintexas]

46. I am so sorry that you had those experiences

And I sincerely meant that your post was great, and *rightfully* bitter. I myself am often bitter as well, since we unfortunately have so many things about which to be bitter in this country lately.

And you're right, it is much easier to find happiness when we let go of self-consciousness. :)

[blindpig]

20. Clinton welfare reform increased child poverty

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/welf-j02.shtml

People claim this guy? A great Democrat? Whose side is we on?

[bobbolink]

32. "Whose side is we on?" The corporate side, of course. You didn't know that?

Hey, if the poor folk suffer, don't expect the latte liberals to care all that much, especially if they're enjoying a boom period.

I mean, really.

Whaddya think this is, the 1930's, when liberals had compassion????

[Two Americas]

39. fuzzy thinking

The opposition has absolute clarity about the nature of the battle, and which side they are on. Every single thing that benefits the people is under relentless assault from the right wingers, for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful few, with the critical assistance of their apologists on the so-called left. Public schools, rights and protections for workers and minority people, labor unions, regulated public utilities, public resources of all kinds, libraries, the Internet, Social Security, public transportation, public access to the media, the public agriculture infrastructure, safety inspection, enforcement of laws against pollution, monopoly, financial manipulation - if it benefits the public and builds a stronger and more humane society, the right wingers are attacking it and destroying it.

All of our frustrations and failures can be traced to our lack of clarity as to the nature of the battle and which side we are on in this battle. The stakes in this battle are now becoming no less than the very survival of humanity, yet still we resist thinking and speaking clearly about this and refuse to present a united front or even to see where the battle lines are drawn, let alone man them.

There is only one thing between us and success - our own fuzzy thinking.

[robcon]

21. Welfare reform was the best anti-poverty legislation ever.

The effect was immediate... fewer welfare cases, more employment, higher incomes, lower costs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. Did you forget the sarcasm smiley?

[bobbolink]

36. No, just copying the talking points from the Heritage Foundation.

:puke:

[Echo In Light]

22. A textbook example of the divide and rule ruse of our ONE corporate political party, w/2 right wings

...and the farce continues on, of course. It's an interesting phenomenon to observe: millions upon millions of brainwashed people keep believing the slight variations of the same lies over and over and over and over....

[elizfeelinggreat]

23. Who's this "we" you're talking about?

I'm sorry but you CANNOT blame me. You can't blame the majority of people I knew back then, they were not greedy, selfish rats.

Please, let's all start pointing fingers at the heartless and call them on it instead of using "we" to identify something most people would NOT have chosen to do if they recognized the scam going on.

[bobbolink]

34. The "we" is all the people who still insist that Clinton was such a great president.

that's who.

[ulysses]

41. I used "we"

because it was done under the guise of our party (assuming you're a Dem - if not, no biggie). I don't know that we don't share in some of the blame, even those of us who disagreed with the "reform" and fought against it.

[Two Americas]

44. very, very few

From being on the front lines in so many battles against the right wing takeover in the 80's and 90's I can tell you without any hesitation that it was very, very lonely there. There were very few who fought - almost none. That was when I first started hearing what are now very common talking points among Dems - "we need to be practical" and "you aren't being realistic" and "we don't have the votes" and "work to get more Dems elected" and "we need to take baby steps" and "these things take time" and "we need to work within the system" and "this is the best we can do" and "you need to be patient" and all of the rest of the double talk that is now routinely used to fend off and dismiss any and all criticism of the party and the politicians, as well as to mock and ridicule any views that are even the slightest bit to the left.

[ulysses]

49. love those excuses.

The wankery of the DLC "pragmatic" class.

[bobbolink]

50. How many "baby steps" for each death of a poor person?

That is one that really drives me around the bend!

"BABY STEPS" --crap!

How many millions of dollars for rich people in each "baby step"?

[Solly Mack]

24. K&R

[Gormy Cuss]

27. TANF is a great success.

It achieved the principal goal which was moving as many people as possible off of the welfare rolls. As long as they landed on their feet, it was deemed a success. No one cares that a few months or years later many were tripped up and have been kissing the pavement ever since.

At the time of welfare deform I was working with some of the country's leading welfare policy analysts and to a person they saw for what it was, an attempt to save money rather than improve the lives of low income people.

[kentuck]

29. There are millions living in the shadows...

And many of them are mothers and children.

[bobbolink]

33. This is what Ehrenreich said about welfare mothers in low-wage jobs

p.220 When poor single mothers had the option of remaining out of the labor force on welfare, the middle and upper middle class tended to view them with a certain impatience, if not disgust. the welfare poor were excoriated for their laziness, their persistence in reproducing in unfavorable circumstances, their presumed addictions, and above all for their "dependency. Here they were, content to live off "government handouts" instead of seeking "self-sufficiency," like everyone else, through a job. They needed to get their act together, learn how to wind an alarm clock, get out there and get to work. But now that government has largely withdrawn it's "handouts", now that the overwhelming majority of the poor are out there toiling in Wal-Mart or Wendy's --well, what are we to think of them? Dis approval and condescension no longer apply, so what outlook makes sense?

Guilt, you maybe thinking warily. Isn't that what we're supposed to feel? But guilt doesn't go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame--same at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on--when for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently--then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor", as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropist of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

p. 221 Someday, of course, --and I will make no predictions as to exactly when--they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end.

from Nickel And Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich

[Two Americas]

35. the key battle

The battle now is to overcome the hostility toward and the sabotage of the political left within the party and modern liberalism. That will attract millions to us in exchange for the few that may be alienated by that or resistant to it, put us on a solid footing of clarity and purpose, build consensus and solidarity, and allow us to battle back against the right wing effectively. By "political left" I am not talking about anything more radical than Abraham Lincoln's view of this:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves the much higher compensation."

"Labor" means all of us - the 90% or more of the population not independently wealthy. "Capital" means those who make money off of money and live on various sorts of passive income.

From this, we can see that we all have common cause - that it is not a matter of the poor people being over there with their peculiar problems that we need to fix. There are the poor, and there are the near poor, the soon to be poor, and the miserable peasants struggling in fear and anxiety lest they become poor. But we are all subject to the same forces, and engaged in the same battle whether we want to face that or not. There is a relatively small group of professional suburban people playing the game successfully, and tempted to see themselves as distinct from the working poor and to take a "if I can make it anyone can, and I have earned everything I have, and besides I donate to help the poor and vote Democratic so get out of my face" attitude. We cannot let that attitude control the political left or the party - and it does now.

The opposition - the political right wing and their wealthy and powerful clients - well know exactly where the battle lines are drawn - between capital and labor. They are engaged in an all-out war against the rest of us 24 hours a day, day in and day out - this is not optional for us. The degree to which one thinks they are immune to this is either the degree of wishful thinking one is willing to indulge in, or the degree to which one is being paid and given status and perks in exchange for promoting the interests and desires of the wealthy and powerful few and attacking their working class brothers and sisters - be they poor, gay, minority people, "too radical," having "made the wrong choices" or otherwise singled out for persecution and deprivation in the ongoing divide and conquer strategy the right wing is using to advance their take-no-prisoners full scale war against all of us.

[bobbolink]

38. That Lincoln must have been a commie. Education of the REAL issues is the battle now.

It's time to begin.

It's PAST time to begin.

Thanks for laying this all out! :applause:

[bobbolink]

37. "Error: You've already recommended that thread." could we please have some more recs?

This is an excellent thread!

:woohoo:

[Two Americas]

40. K and R

Come on folks, let's snap out of the malaise, break out of the trap. Let's dig in, let's fight back.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[ulysses]

42. thanks for the recs and discussion.

Hope we can keep this up for a while longer and keep generating ideas. I have to go to bed now, though - damned spring cold.

[teacher gal]

47. Great post Ulysses

and really something to think about.