TANF

The Post-Dispatch rightly criticizes Missouri's new law (HB73) that targets the poorest among us for drug testing, but imposes no similar drug testing requirements for wealthier recipients of taxpayer assistance.  

There is no evidence — none — that welfare recipients are any more likely to be on drugs than other classes of people — such as lawmakers or corporate executives — who receive taxpayer funds. The law, like dozens of others considered by state legislatures in recent years, simply is another front in the class war started by the Republican Party...

Today, the poor are under attack by the GOP, and drug-testing laws for welfare recipients are a weapon of choice. They are mean-spirited, useless and expensive wastes of time...

Missouri's GOP lawmakers, and the handful of Democrats who joined them, were wrong to follow Florida's example. Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon was weak-kneed not to veto the bill. We look forward to the courts ending this unconstitutional farce.

The General Assembly and Governor Nixon really missed the mark on this bill. 

Luann Ridgeway, pictured here imagining a story for next week's "Capitol Report"

Hey look, Sen. Luann Ridgeway is making stuff up for her weekly newsletter:

How many times have you been in line at the grocery store counting pennies to pay for imitation hamburger and off-brand pasta, only to see the person in front of you unload a cart full of steaks and then whip out a welfare EBT card to pay for it? It happens to me and I bet it happens to you as well. The program that provides for your hard earned money to be spent in this fashion by people as able-bodied as are you and I is called TANF, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families...

There was a time when being on public assistance came with a stigma. Now the government goes out of its way to sign up more people. Where public welfare used to be a measure of last resort, it is now considered normal since that is what their parents did and what so many of their friends continue to do. Young unmarried women have actually been heard saying they want to have their baby before marriage as then the birth and maternal after-care will be "free."

A few quick questions while I clean the coffee off my keyboard:

1. What is "imitation hamburger"?
2. Where did Luann Ridgeway hear "young unmarried women" saying they want to have a baby before they get married so that "the birth and maternal after-care will be 'free?'"
3. What ethnicity do you think the fantasy steak buyer was when Luann Ridgeway imagined this story? 

The Pitch's Nadia Pflaum has a much better dissection of Ridgeway's offensive "Capitol Report" than I can muster, so you should just go read what she wrote.   In summary, "Welfare queens don't exist. Most informed adults have come to accept -- along with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny -- that the welfare queen (a term coined by Ronald Reagan in a 1976 presidential campaign speech) is a big ol' myth. "

Ridgeway's entire entirely offensive rant can be read below the fold.

Last year, Republican State Senator Bill Stouffer (R-Napton) introduced legislation to require drug testing for Missourians on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) because, as he put it, “those receiving help from the state should help themselves.” As it turns out, Stouffer knows something about receiving government assistance, as he has been the beneficiary of over $700,000 in federal farm subsidies since 1995.

Small Government Lawmakers on the Government Dole (Partial List)*

• State Sen. William Herbert Stouffer - $768,154.45
• State Rep. John W Cauthorn - $435,920.99
• State Rep. Thomas L Loehner - $104,891.99
• State Sen. Robert Mayer - $ 38,963.01

Rep. Mark Parkinson (R-St. Charles) thinks the working poor and their children should go hungry when they travel to other states looking for better deals, looking for work and visiting family. After all, nothing says freedom and limited government like mean-spirited proposals to limit movement and choice.  

Kudos to Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford for standing up to Parkinson's mean-spirited and half-baked proposal. 

Parkinson, pictured here being totally awesome, is giving up all that claptrap about the poor for Lent. "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."

----------

UPDATE: This great photo has inspired a fair amount of reader feedback this morning, along with alternate caption ideas. A few early submissions:

• Almost looks like a real beard, don't it?
Read More »
Share
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• Facebook Like

The Tribune's Hank Waters weighs in on the proposal to drug test TANF parents for whom the DSS determines there's "reasonable suspicion" for illegal drug use:  "The problem with this law goes beyond its difficulty of enforcement. Its very premise is wrong. Supporters say welfare recipients should not receive government money to fund a drug habit, but on this basis anyone receiving government money should be subject to testing...Supporters try to cast this bill as a way to save money, but that’s a crock...Once the legislative demagogues have cast their votes, the parade will be over and the law soon forgotten. This sort of moralistic knee-jerking is too common these days in Jefferson City."

Rep. Ellen Brandom (R-Sikeston) plans to reintroduce legislation this session that would direct the Department of Social Services to set up a drug-testing program for participants in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.  The tests would apply only to people for whom the Department decides there is a "reasonable cause" to investigate. If a person fails, they would be ineligible to receive benefits for one year.

Brandom says the bill she'll pre-file for the 2010 session will be be identical to the perfected version from last session (HB30).