TANF/Welfare Reform is just as important as ANWR!!

Something that has gone completely overlooked by the media, DC Democrats and grassroot activists and even certain womens groups is the fact that the Budget Reconciliation bill contained the MOST significant changes to welfare reform/TANF in 10 years, since the original 1996 welfare reform passed.

I have seldom seen this mentioned anywhere, and even when discussing the rancid bill that passed yesterday with Darth Cheney's tie breaking vote, the focus is on the medicaid/Medicare, student loans, foster care cuts. Nary a word has been mentioned that this bill contains the most radical and farreaching changes to the 1996 welfare reform bill, all done through shitty procedural moves that were every bit as unethical and disgusting as attaching ANWR to the Defense Appropriations. This will have a heavy and devastating impact for the least among us.

some background (note, this is not my area of expertise. i welcome others who may know more to add or correct what i say, but seeing as how no one seems to be posting on this, i will try to provide some info):

the original TANF reform was set to expire in 2002. Bush had proposed imposing more work requirements on TANF recipients, Dems wanted more funding for child care and letting states be flexible in terms of work requirements (to account for job training/education/substance abuse, etc). The House passed Bush's reforms, but because we controlled the Senate at the time (sigh...how long ago that seems...), the "reforms" didn't go anywhere and they just passed continuing resolutions to keep funding the program without changes.

Meanwhile, every year since, the House has managed to pass Bush's proposed changes while in the Senate, it got bottled up and so continuing extensions have been passed every year since to maintain the status quo. While progressive activists wanted to change the 96 welfare reform for the better, they also did breathe sighs of reliefs at the continued extensions of the bill, because at the very least, it did not make WORSE the 1996 law.

This year, as usual, the House passed their version of "welfare reform" including the stringent new work requirements, $300 million for marriage promotion programs, what amounts to cuts in child care funding, basically imposing a HUGE new unfunded mandate for the states (NCLB, but even worse). Under the House bill, the work requirements for someone with a newborn would double from 20 hours to 40 hours and you'd be unable to count vocation education or job training for that (or the formula works out that way...like i said, i am not an expert on this stuff).

For the legislative history of TANF for the past few years, the Natl Council of Churches has a good site (yes, sometimes we Christians can protest things other than abortion, ok? and we do it louder and more insistently than most of the other so-called "liberal" groups, including the progressive blogosphere)

http://www.ncccusa.org/...

So on this very important and controversial bill, which has been fought over for the past 4 freakin years, with just as much fervor and debate as ANWR, what did the House GOP decide to do? Attach the reauthorization of TANF to the Budget Reconciliation Bill.

The Senate version of the Budget Reconciliation did NOT deal with welfare reform or TANF at all as they thought it was way too an important issue to be attached to the Budget and should be voted on separately.

In the conference report of the Budget Reconciliation (the bill passed yesterday by the Senate), the FINAL version of the TANF changes were even WORSE and MORE HARSH and onerous than the House version of the Budget Reconciliation!!!!!!! yet silence permeates the activists, the feminists, more concerned about caribou (and yes, Gwinchins), abortion, the Supreme Court, NSA spying.  This was every bit as outrageous a procedural move as attaching ANWR to the defense bill, but one issue got the attention and media than the other. So yes, i say again, and they wonder why they call us "elitist liberals."

Even NOW, which traditioinally does great work on welfare and has been fighting the Bush changes, has been silent about what just happened. So is the FEminist Majority. their web pages are 90% obsessed with abortion (though the budget is mentioned in one bullet, but not the new TANF changes). I didn't get any Action Alerts on this (but i sure as hell receive 10 zillion emails a day on Alito).

Leave it up to a Republican, olympia snowe, to  decry the effort to include it in the Budget Reconciliation, no doubt one of the factors behind her NO vote:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...

"I cannot fathom proceeding with dramatic changes to welfare that simply will leave the states holding the bag and families forced to choose between work and caring for their children," said U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the Finance Committee, which handles welfare. "This is not the way to help needy families help themselves."

Harry Reid also mentioned the changes to TANF in his remarks yesterday during the budget vote.

So what do these changes do? here is some info on the woeful underfunding of the child care provisions and how poor families will be caught in the bind of working vs taking care of their children:

http://www.tompaine.com/...

Here is Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis on how the bill is a huge unfunded mandate on states who now are FORCED to have a certain % of their welfare caseload working, or risk losing funding. The 1996 Reform at least preserved many aspects of letting states design their own work requirements and offered SOME flexibility on implementation. that has now been taken away. CBPP mentions how the legislation cynically sets up states to fail, and how the GOP wanted it to be able to get around the "Byrd rule" which says policy changes with no budgetary impact should not be included in fast-track legislation.

http://www.cbpp.org/...

CBPP also mentions how ironically, because of the stringent demand that 90% of two-parent families receiving TANF must be working, this may actually DISCOURAGE marriage, all that new "marriage promotion" money notwithstanding.

Oh yeah, and thanks to that $1.5 billion cut in child support enforcement, we can expect women receiving TANF to have it even tougher, and that innovative programs like Wisconsin's, that allow women on TANF to keep child support (instead of it going to the govt) will be outlawed.

http://www.madison.com/....

The poor and those on TANF usually don't have regular access to computers or the internet. they aren't the ones blogging so their voices go unheard. and i'm sorry now thanks to the heartless Republicans that this is their Christmas gift.

•  Tremendous post

  There are few programs as important as TANF, in my opinion--and you're absolutely right, this is being forgotten.

  The deconstruction of these programs will further handicap underprivileged schoolchildren and set them increasingly behind their counterparts in better funded districts.

  by The Graduate on Thu Dec 22, 2005 at 08:43:31 AM PDT

•  No expert either

  but you're right that this is important and horrifying. I hadn't heard of it.

  The impact on states is not minor, states are having their own budget problems and are struggling already.

  I'm having trouble finding specific information on this via google. But you seem to be saying the work requirement is going to 40 hours AND child care is being cut AND work will no longer include education or training AND states are loosing flexibility in these requirements.

  I can't begin to imagine how they think this will work. Even pretending they were funding day care how would they see this working? In my city most jobs for lower skill workers are part time, most low income people do not have cars.Stores and restaurants can be open during times no bus is running. That can be hard enough for a worker with one part time job. Employers aren't friendly to workers who need their time restraints considered in scheduling.

  That was easier to work around in the employment market a decade ago, it isn't anymore.

  But now we will be talking about juggling 2 part times jobs if you can get them...and hauling kids off to day care and back home...all within the hours the bus runs and getting employers to go along with this in a state where the unemployment rate is near 7%.
  Two part time jobs probably means no days off. Poor mothers love their children too, they just won't have any time for them.

  And if you live in a rural county with even worse transportation?

  I'm not sure if we're saying the states now have to pay for day care or if the parents have to. And I'm wondering about the continuation of Medicaid once they are working, because odds are they will not have coverage through work.

  Quite honestly there will be many who aren't ready for full time work, have no work skills and will not be good employees. Not because they don't want to be, they don't know how. Being mandated to do it does not make it possible. The training was a help in this. But people with a low IQ or mental health issues are not going to make it without ongoing support.

  When it was 20 hours work or training with good support for day care and transportation it was not a bad idea. (Though it starting when the baby was 3 months old was not good) Work can be frightening to those who haven't done it and stepping out into the a parent could discover much about their abilities and feel good being more a part of society.

  I am just rambling now but my heart just sinks imagining the impact of this. How vile that it is the "pro-life" group that quits caring about the fetus and family as soon as the child leaves the womb.

  Thanks for bringing this up. Maybe thanks. It hurts to know it.

  by joynow on Thu Dec 22, 2005 at 09:23:35 AM PDT

  •  child care

    is not so much being cut, as very very underfunded. if you are requiring states to have like 70% of your caseloads to be working, then obviously the states need money for childcare. the bill included an additional $1 billion in child care, but due to the requirements imposed on the states, it's essentially an unfunded mandate. The Congressional Budget office estimated that the changes would require i think more than $8 billion in additional child care funding if states are going to meet the requirements.

    as to what exactly the new work requirements are, i have not got confirmation that it is now 40 hour work weeks, but i would not be surprised. and there are new rules that say you can't count rehab or vocational ed towards that, or only some of it. that part i'm unsure of what exactly the rules say, but i'm sure it's very bad.

    by ihlin on Thu Dec 22, 2005 at 09:34:13 AM PDT

•  ok, you've had your baby

  back to the rice paddies, break is over?

  And what are the "Mothers belong home with their kids" group saying?

  <cricket sounds>

  by mollyd on Thu Dec 22, 2005 at 09:23:41 AM PDT