| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| California is the welfare state? |
| 2010-02-08 |
| "Did you know that California has twice the population of New York, but five times as many welfare cases? Thirty-two percent of all welfare caseloads in America are here in California." Ronald Reagan singled out what he called a "welfare queen" for abusing government aid. Newt Gingrich pushed welfare reform as part of his Contract With America. Now, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, the top Republican candidates for California governor, are bringing back welfare as a key issue in their quest for primary votes. Welfare's high-profile role in the race became clear last month when Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay, unveiled her first issue-specific radio ad. "Some people worry that we're creating a welfare state," Whitman says at the start of the spot. "The fact is, California is the welfare state." Poizner, another ultra-wealthy former Silicon Valley CEO, has made tightening welfare rules a key part of his plan to balance the state budget. Like Whitman, Poizner proposes cutting lifetime welfare limits to two years from five. "Welfare is an example of where we're spending, in my opinion, several billion more than we should because we don't enforce the work rules and our benefit structure is too high," Poizner said in an interview. "I just don't think it should be a magnet." Whitman declined to participate in an interview on the issues in the governor's race. The candidates' decisions to highlight welfare match public opinion polls that have shown Republican voters particularly dislike aid programs. In a June 2008 Field Poll, Republicans picked public assistance as the top spending area they'd be willing to cut compared with four other areas, such as higher education and health care. Only 13 percent of Democrats chose public aid as the category they'd be most willing to cut. "At least among Republican voters, it's not tricky to talk about welfare cuts," said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. "There's one basic difference between the parties, and that's Republicans are a lot less likely to spend money on social programs than Democrats." Welfare advocates point out that, until the recession, state welfare rolls had already been declining. The state's caseload has since climbed to 540,475 in September from a low of 454,956 in July 2007. "CalWORKs (the state welfare program) has been a shrinking program, not a growing program," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. "The strong insinuation that CalWORKs is a big contributor to the budget deficit is completely wrong." The CalWORKs program is budgeted at $5.3 billion for the next fiscal year, with about half of that coming from federal sources and the other half paid by the state and counties, according to the state Department of Social Services. General fund expenditures proposed for the next fiscal year amount to $82.9 billion. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already proposed making cuts to CalWORKs that include lowering grant levels and eliminating aid to legal, non-citizen immigrants who have lived in the country for less than five years. In the radio ad, Whitman argues that all recipients should be required to work, saying, "If they don't, they lose their benefits." Asked why Whitman used welfare for her campaign's first issue-specific ad, press secretary Sarah Pompei answered, "There will be many different proposals for how to accomplish these goals" of cutting spending. Poizner has estimated that his plan for overhauling CalWORKs and reducing caseloads would save the state $3.35 billion over 18 months. The plan would divert much of the federal money that the state receives for welfare to other social services. What both candidates point out is that the state claims about a third of the country's welfare cases while holding about a tenth of the total U.S. population. One key difference is the fact that California offers a "safety net" many other states don't for children whose parents have lost their benefits. Whitman doesn't mention in her ad that about 40 percent of welfare recipients in the state are children. Poizner has proposed cutting aid to the entire family when the adult recipient doesn't follow program rules. "We're concerned about making sure that kids are taken care of but we're also concerned that adults might be using their children as a way to get at welfare benefits themselves," Poizner said. "There's a lot of fraud in the system because of exploiting kids." |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #6 That NoMoreBS would be the key motivation for 3/4 of the smaller and far more fiscally sound states to call for that Constitutional Convention. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-02-08 22:49 |
| #5 See also PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > ITS NOW MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PAY OFF THE US NATIONAL DEBT. IIUC the USG must change the Federal Reserve system + stop self-destructive deficit spending practices, but it'll will still take a long Long L-O-N-G LLLLLOOOONNNNGGGG time for the US to gener recover from the extensive damage already wrought - IS AMER WILL TO CHNAGE + ENDURE WHAT MUST OCCUR STRONG ENOUGH!? ALTERNATIVE > LITTLE-TO-NOTHING CHANGES AS PER PCORRECT, GOOBERMINT-N-POL WAFFLECRAT-HAPPY "SPEND, SPEND, SPEND" FOREVERMORE RESULTING IN EVENTUAL USSR-STYLE IMPLOSION OF AMERICA [2030-2050]. Lest we fergit, OBAMA BUDGET > US$1.0 will be worth US$0.25 Cents + US$0.01 US Penny come 2020 = US$0.26 Cents, of which the USG will have to spend US$1.77 to match the same Dollar FMV. "SPEND, SPEND, SPEND" YEAR 2020 = US$0.26 Cents will continue to lower, while the US$1.77 goes higher - THE USG CANNOT CATCH UP, + CANNOT AVOID ANY SORT OF HYPERINFLATION-N-WORSE ECON PRESSURES, ERGO "JUSTIFIED" ANTI-US, ANTI-DMEOCRATIC, ANTI-CAPITALISM/FREE MARKET, ETC. NATIONAL-GLOBAL SOCIALISM-GOVTISM BY DEFAULT/DEFINITION. COMMIES + TOTALITARIANS WIN > its only an issue of how RADIC ISLAM = GOD-BASED SOCIALISTS-GOVTISTS will react to the SECULAR COMMIE "VICTORY". |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-02-08 20:42 |
| #4 The ugly little secret is that California has no intention or ability to stop becoming even more of a welfare state, collectively, as the default of the state government and concurrent city and county defaults will force the Obambi administration to prop up the state with other states money. Make no mistake, California is going banmkrupt, perhaps within a year or two, and when it does, what do you think this administration is going to do? Rather that leave us to our fate (and God knows I'm trying to get out of here before it happens, Uncle Sam will pick up the tab. Want proof? The State Senate, in a state with an 81 billion dollar revenue stream this year and 102 billion in expenditures, teh State Senate PASSED a statewide universal health care bill that has an annual cost of $200 billion! Can you possibly need more proof of how insane the Democrats in this state are? |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2010-02-08 19:11 |
| #3 "The fact is, California is the welfare state." It is also a Democratic state. As of May 2009, the breakout of registered voters was 45% Democrats, 35% Republican, and 20% Independent. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-02-08 16:58 |
| #2 "Did you know that California has twice the population of New York, but five times as many welfare cases? Thirty-two percent of all welfare caseloads in America are here in California." LA is also home to the largest homeless population, and everyone knows drug-addicted people can't possibly work. I know, let's legalize them! (sarc) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already proposed making cuts to CalWORKs that include lowering grant levels and eliminating aid to legal, non-citizen immigrants who have lived in the country for less than five years. I take it these legal non-citizen immigrants on the dole are refugees sent and vetted by the UN. WFP donations are down so expect more to arrive soon. And again, Islamists don't allow women to work, even in aid distribution. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2010-02-08 13:57 |
| #1 Anyone running a pool on who's going to go bust first - California or Greece? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-02-08 11:15 |