Facing $1 billion deficit, Arizona sharply limits welfare
Source: AP
By RYAN VAN VELZER
PHOENIX (AP) Facing a $1 billion budget deficit, Arizona's Republican-led legislature has reduced the lifetime limit for welfare recipients to just one year the shortest window in the nation.
Low-income families on welfare will now have their benefits cut off after just 12 months.
As a result, the Arizona Department of Economic Security will drop at least 1,600 families including more than 2,700 children from the state's federally funded welfare program when the budget year begins in July.
The cuts reflect a prevailing mood among the lawmakers in control in Arizona, that welfare, Medicaid and other public assistance programs are crutches that keep the poor from getting back on their feet and achieving their potential.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150518/us-welfare-cuts-6ae3effbd2.html
And when they starve it will decrease the surplus population...Scrooge
randys1
(16,286 posts)When people get tired of being physically attacked by the right, whether that be Women who wont have a right to their own body, a Black man for being Black who must be shot on sight for the crime of being Black, or the poor who are hungry.
When people say enough, we can stop this.
It will require some pain, however, because remember, the right hates you and wants you dead.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)But keep in mind the voters want these politicians especially in Arizona which is super red.
warrant46
(2,205 posts)Their whole attitude is that if you join a Union you are a communist and if you need food help you are lazy and deserve to starve to death.
the_sly_pig
(741 posts)to States with compassion thereby overloading their systems, systematically crushing all systems.
The Arizona legislature is filled with scumbags.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)More of ALEC and a Certain Church Group. Look no further than Utah,Idaho,and Nevada. This will really have issues in Mohave County.
valerief
(53,235 posts)mpcamb
(2,871 posts)misguided, wasteful lawsuits and his fat pension.
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)and crush both.
Seems like this should be illegal; it's fiscal "second hand smoke."
jwirr
(39,215 posts)people - if not they had better create some. There $1 billion budget deficit is just the actions of another R governor. The poor are just their scapegoats. They did not take the lesson they should be learning from Kansas.
Thank you Newty.
hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)Volaris
(10,272 posts)I'm not quite up on my 'welfare reform', but is Arizonas ability to do this the result of Newt and Bill having a 'bro' moment as you suggest, cause if so that's fucked up...
I think there should be a fund set up..we just pick a state, we all move there and take the fucker over. We take everyone who homeless, jobless and wants to be educated and just set up shop, and see what happens. I bet in a decade it would be the most vibrant economy in the country, and all the idiots who moved to Red State Hell can wonder what the he'll happened..
jwirr
(39,215 posts)state. That means the state can change them.
It is a problem that I wish we could change. But you would never be able to get the Rs to go along with it.
Roy Rolling
(6,917 posts)1. Mismanage government finances so miserably there is a gigantic crisis
2. Use self-created crisis to ram political goals down the throats of desperate people
When are people gonna wake up to this tactic?
Rolando
(88 posts)It's a lot better than my verbose ranting.
And I appreciate anyone who quotes Carly Simon.
turbinetree
(24,703 posts)that this legislature did not come to the conclusion that maybe its trade and trade policies.
For having human beings on and in poverty----------amazing
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)For those who will do it. I trace the rise in heroin to the original welfare reform.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)MoreGOPoop
(417 posts)"And when they starve it will decrease the surplus population...Scrooge"
It would also greatly reduce resistance to a godawful venture at the
Grand Canyon. Save the People- Deport the Fascists.
perdita9
(1,144 posts)groundloop
(11,519 posts)Someone please set my poor little head straight.... How the hell is cutting people off from a federally funded program going to help the state budget?
Furthermore, dropping 1600 families isn't going to amount to a hill of beans when it comes to a Billion Dollar deficit (unless those families are getting high 6 figures from the program).
They were just looking for another excuse to screw poor people (and more than likely many middle class families as well) and their mismanaged budget provided a convenient excuse.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)If someone is on TANF Transitional Aid for Needy Families the federal Government will match any state grant up to the "Standard of Need" set by Congress. The Standard of Need is $741 a month. Thus if the state sets it's welfare grant at $741 a month the federal government will 1/2 of that amount but the state must pay the other half.
If the state Decides to pay less the feds will just pay half of what the state pays. In my home state the amount set for one person on welfare is $174 month. The feds pay $87.50 the state pays $87 50. If the state would set the welfare grant at $741 a month, the feds will pay $ 370.50 and the state will have to pay $ 370.50; total of $741.00.
No state has ever paid the Standard of need. The Standard of Need was set in 1967 as the minimal one needs to survive. The Standard of Need is adjusted for inflation each year but the state's are not required to adjust their welfare grants. My home state of Pennsylvania has not adjusted its welfare grants since 1982.
Thus the state's set the grant amount but gets half of that amount from the feds.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)Reptillians...Oops, meant Rethuglians, have never had to worry about food, clothing, or shelter...the poor can help themselves if they want to...Right? Repukian asswipes...they could work real hard, don'tcha know? Then, they could be eating, sleeping, and dressing just like the GodOffalParty wants them to...
Dickens would surely know these "lawmakers."
TerrapinFlyer
(277 posts)It makes me want to organize even MORE against every Republican in office. This is war.
Rolando
(88 posts)Last edited Tue May 19, 2015, 12:52 AM - Edit history (1)
I got marooned here, but I'm trying, trying to get out. Come and please help me leave. You can't imagine what I've been through living here, and I'm not on welfare. I'm 83 years old and on a state pension (from Oregon, a place that has a good pension system), and of course I get Social Security. Nobody would believe how screwed up this place is. There's heavy racism against Hispanics, but the Hispanics who are in charge of something (like police officers) are prejudicial against Anglos, and I'm an Anglo-Saxon (more Saxon than Anglo). And don't think I don't mourn the death of my wife every day. We came here for her health. We came here for her health. After about four years she died. Stay away. It doesn't matter if you never see the Grand Canyon. Get a video of it.
I could go on for a week about what's wrong with this place. Half the state (about 48%, really) is federal land, and these creeps want it "back," when it never belonged to them in the first place. (Read Stegner). They just get reduced rent for grazing cattle, and get money from the feds to make up for taxes they don't collect because it's not private.
The politicians ram through "bond issues" and the divert the money for uses other than what the people voted for.
Pima Community College failed to report to the feds when students dropped below required course loads and kept giving those freeloaders certification to get fed grants. PCC was put on probation but never paid a dime back.
Street and road projects, partially funded by YOU, get diverted.
There are rich people here--believe it, and lots of mansions and expensive restaurants and golf courses and expensive cars. The couple of friends I've had (gone now) worked in service industries and dealt with those skinflints.
We have many defense industries and two very poor Senators: Flake and you know the other one, on TV every Sunday. Bye
I grew up here and got out for awhile (army and then a job in austin, tx) but had to come back to help my folks. Now that my dad's gone I have to find a way to get my mom and myself out of here and that's hard when you just make the bills every month, even working overtime
CountAllVotes
(20,875 posts)AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)Stargazer99
(2,585 posts)You cons need a lesson in reality punish and torture the poor..not much difference between you and Nazi Germany. Too bad the nation isn't made to see the agony and heartache you cons are so adroit at rationalizing.
Rolando
(88 posts)I wish you would stop comparing events in this country to Nazi atrocities.
Response to Omaha Steve (Original post)
Stargazer99 This message was self-deleted by its author.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)After all, if they cut taxes to zero, they'll make up the revenue in volume.