Whitman welfare ads: Demonizing the poor?

Contra Costa Times ^ | 8/23/10 | Steve Harmon

[SmithL]

SACRAMENTO -- Welfare advocates are criticizing Meg Whitman for ratcheting up her rhetoric against welfare recipients as she rails against waste, fraud and abuse in state government.

In a one-minute radio ad that Whitman recently began airing, she touts her plan to create a statewide grand jury to root out waste, fraud and abuse, promising to send to jail anyone "caught robbing the taxpayers."

She mentions a state Legislative Analyst's report that found that 150 staffers in the Department of Education are working on programs that it no longer administers, and $3.4 million spent by CalTrans on a single rest stop on Interstate 80.

And then she lays into the meat of her ad: alleged welfare fraud.

"Welfare recipients were caught using cash benefit ATM cards in gambling casinos," she says in the ad. "There are billions of dollars of fraud in MediCal, In-Home Supportive Services and welfare alone. Enough is enough."

A Los Angeles Times report found that welfare recipients made about $1.8 million in cash withdrawals at casinos since October, leading Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue an executive order banning the use of the welfare ATM cards at casinos.

But with the state facing a $19 billion budget deficit, finding outlandish anecdotes of alleged fraud such as the casino withdrawals won't come close to solving the budget crisis, welfare advocates said.

[kcvl]

Frank Mecca is currently the Executive Director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. Frank has served as the Executive Director for the past 18 years

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Controller estimates $11.5 million in fraudulent in-home care payments

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More than two-thirds of the 1.4 million people enrolled in CalWORKs are children, who receive cash grants and benefit from subsidies that help their parents study and work.

The maximum grant a CalWORKs mother and two children in Sacramento can receive is $661 a month

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14,000 county employees who administer CalWORKs would lose their jobs.

[Ev Reeman]

Or if they had to pay for it themselves.

The left does not pay taxes.

Let’s get state IRS agencies to investigate liberals in every state and make sure they are paying their fair share of taxes owed.

Let’s start with Charlie Rangel and Timothy Geithner.

[Gilbo_3]

hehehh...at first glance i thought it was 'whiteman welfare ads...'

pretty close though actually...

[GnuHere]

Yeah, every time I hear somebody bragging about investigating M-Care/M-Caid fraud, I think, “Great!” But it is always the crooked providers that get caught, which is good, but never the fraudulent, able-bodied recipients of such taxpayer dollars.

[PapaBear3625]

I am pretty sure if the govt hired a few private investigators and forensic accountants per state, they could recover millions in welfare and Medicaid/disability fraud. Their salaries would be more than covered. But gosh, that would be unpopular and cruel!

Create welfare "bounty hunters". They get paid a percentage of the fraud they uncover and eliminate.

[GnuHere]

Meanie!

[Hoodat]

Demonizing the poor

LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation

[Mind-numbed Robot]

... give Brown a term in Sacremento, with a Dem legislature, and you'll see a GOP sweep in 2014 in California

Possibly correct, but it sounds a great deal like the argument made to justify "let Obama have a term and we can then get a new Reagan". The problem is that there may be nothing left by then and in any case there is no guarantee that another Reagan exist. A lot of damage can be done in 4 years.

Ken, I agree with you on many things but not this time. The Obama administration has already done what you are recommending for California. If Californians aren't smart enough to react to that then overthrowing the Democrats in California is a fantasy.

I am never in favor of your argument of electing the enemy and letting them screw things up so it will be easier for us next time. If we can't argue the common sense of conservatism now, as opposed to the fantasy of Progressives, then when can we do it?

[gogogodzilla]

How about we concentrate on the eliminating useless programs/personnel/bureaus and offices?

What’s forgotten in this ‘cut the waste’ meme is that we are still leaving the bloated welfare state intact... just more efficient.

[ken5050]

But is Meg a conservative....will she do what California needs, or will she try to accomodate the Dem legislature...that’s the question...Illegal immigration is absolutle killing California, let she waffles on doing what needs to be done..

[Mind-numbed Robot]

But is Meg a conservative....will she do what California needs, or will she try to accomodate the Dem legislature...that’s the question...Illegal immigration is absolutle killing California, let she waffles on doing what needs to be done..

Another argument I disagree with! You are recommending that they elect a known evil rather than take a chance that another may not be as good as we hope. That is a classic example of allowing the perfect to be an enemy of the good. Few, if any, will be perfect and Meg may turn out to be much better than you think.

Jerry Brown is a career politician. He uses one political office as a stepping stone to the next. He draws his paycheck from the taxpayers and uses his position to make much more. Do you really think he just wants to "serve the people?" Those are the people we are trying to get rid of.

I used to raise horses and when I hear politicians say they are in for the public service I usually think of a stallion servicing a mare.

[ken5050]

I don't disagree with you, intellectually..yet if elections have consequences, then the people of California have to pay for what they've voted for the last few decades...same thing is true in NY and Mass...Patrick will be re-elected, and NY is about to annoint Cuomo...the major saving grace of the GOP House will be that there will be NO bailouts of California next year...the state has to go down the tubes, the public union contracts have to be broken, and rewritten, the pension plans have to be overturned...

Let me try this another way...contrast Meg with the new gov of NJ...who has stated clearly what he's going to do to restore fiscal integrity to the state..will Meg do that..I don't think so...