Posted on 04/08/2015 5:30:14 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
Maine finally took a bold step forward in welfare reform and it’s paying huge dividends.
Last year Maine passed a measure that would require recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP, to complete a certain number of work, volunteer, or job-training hours before being eligible for assistance.
Main Governor Paul LaPage passed the measure last year and the resulting drop in food-stamp enrollees has been dramatic.
At the close of 2014 approximately 12,000 individuals were enrolled in the state assistance program. Keep in mind that these individuals are adults who aren’t disabled and who don’t have children at home and who are claiming the food-stamp benefits because of a lack of financial resources.
After forcing these individuals to either work part-time for twenty hours each week, enroll in a vocational program, or volunteer for a minimum of twenty-four hours per month, the numbers showed a significant drop from 12,000 enrollees to just over 2,500.
Republicans in the state are calling it a major victory, while Democrats are infuriated and are calling for special measures to roll back some of the strict requirements.
However, even if the requirements lose some of their strictness, once an individual is removed from the Maine food-stamp program they cannot receive benefits from the program for three years.
This is a true victory for welfare reform, and, while opponents are continuing to push back, we can hope that other states will notice the effectiveness of Maine’s program.
Meanwhile, for all the naysayers who say that this program is unfairly targeting those in rural or extremely poor areas, let’s remind ourselves who this program is really affecting.
These individuals who were benefiting from the food-stamp law and who now can’t are able-bodied, capable adults. These aren’t people with physical or mental disabilities or raising growing children. These are regular Joes who don’t seem to want to get a job.
And while I will say that getting a job can be harder than it sounds, Maine’s program solves that difficulty beautifully. If individuals can’t get and hold a part-time job of twenty hours per week, they can qualify by enrolling in training program. If that doesn’t get them a job, they can still qualify by volunteering.
Do you see what Maine did there? They’re making people exhaust their possibilities for employment before giving them a handout. Finally a state government has hit upon a great way to reward people for trying to get jobs and to punish those who sit around feeding off the taxes of the rest of the country.
Now the struggle remains for the rest of the country to work to adopt similarly effective laws.
Forcing food stamp recipients to work is like spraying a can of Raid down an anthill. Almost everybody scatters.
Lobsters, or welfare recipients?
Nah, they went on Social Security Disability.
“He is now trying to eliminate the income tax and shift it to property taxes. Not popular. But what it does is take money away from bureaucrats. Hoo hoo you should see how the hospitals and other agencies are fighting having their gravy trains dry up.”
How does paying more property tax help the average Joe. And how does it take money from bureaucrats? And what does this have to do with hospitals? Thanks.
An exodus took place to the most generous welfare area. Someone told them Maine. I read that the Mayor of Lewiston pleaded with the "Somali Community" of Georgia to not send any more people. He was promptly called a "racist". The hitherto available resource centers and financial outlets were being taxed to the point of collapse.
Someone there even employed a Canadian woman adviser on how to successfully integrate Somalian residents into the culture. Oh no! exclaimed I, another well meaning bureaucrat. I wonder if anyone from Maine knows just what is the situation regarding this sudden influx into a peaceful society?
Mostly all Somalians. The Feds have another program to assist those Muzzies who can’t find work or who are booted off the SNAP programs administered by the state.
It never fails. (sigh)
By shifting funding over to property taxes, and the reluctance of towns to increase property taxes will cause a downsizing of the budget.
Less money means less the bureaucrats and hospital corps have to spend and run. Most of the state is taken up by a few healthcare corporations that have hospitals and other healthcare entities as sub corps. These large corporations suck monies from the state and eliminate competition.
The state and the country as a whole are prisoners of healthcare laws that are insanely difficult, such as the interpreter laws that make the healthcare entities responsible for the communicating with a non English speaker.
Big money in big healthcare and its bosom buddy, big insurance.
Many states have those requirements but don’t enforce them. Most state welfare organizations either don’t have the staff or the higher ups won’t back them up.
GRRRRREAT news! Thanks for posting. HOORAY Maine and Governor Paul LaPage!
http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-maine-debt-clock.html
It sounds like that was answered already: if they were poor enough to qualify, in spite of having a job, so long as it was at least a 20 hour a week job, they stayed on the roles, if it was less, they had to top it up with job training.
Interesting to see how many left the state.
Lobsters.
It seems our welfare parasites are becoming an endangered species.
Atta boy Monsieur LePage.
They can already get cold hard cash with their SNAP/EBT card
Thank-you. I am sure everyone who read your response learned a lot.
I thought as much. I doubt the current crop of welfare recipients would meet USDA specifications.
The article said it was able-bodied people who were not working.
One would assume that, the real issue being how to delineate need vs. convenience, those who are actually working and still have a valid need will not be dumped. Especially since the prerequisite to actually show a willingness to be useful to society and earn the benefits seems to be the standard. I have always been a proponent of staging folks off the dole by allowing them to work and taper off the benefits in a way that keeps them a bit ahead of the game. If they go from zero income to $100 a week, drop the benefits by $50 a week. It provides incentive for those who are actually willing to try to become self-sufficient better than having a specific cutoff where one gets further behind by working.
I can see why the Left hates it - they depend on folks staying reliant on the governmenthard working taxpayers. When more people discover that it is an abomination to rob one set of folks to support the dregs, the Dems lose votes.
That picture cannot have been taken in Maine
There are huge amounts of people in this country who have worked the system and figured out how to collect Social Security disability.
It’s a huge issue in my opinion.
I’m speaking of people who in most ways are in no way disabled. In contrast to the few who truly are.
Back a few years ago when I was working on a project in California, an AG office audit showed that 60% of all welfare payments in LA County were fraudulent.
LA County’s budget is around 21 Billion dollars a year.
Around 80% of LA County’s budget goes Social Welfare transfer payments while the remaining 20% pay for things like schools, government buildings, roads and all the expenses.
That means around 16 Billion of the 21 Billion dollar LA County budget is allocated to social welfare transfer payment spending of one form or another.
Of that 16 Billion spent, 60% is fraudulent. This gives about 10 Billion taxpayer dollars wasted on welfare fraud in LA County alone.
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