[fight_truth_decay]

Reversing the Spin:

Deanna Streets worked for 23 years, but in 1989 the single mom quit her job at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to raise the son of her teen-age daughter, who had cerebral palsy.

She needed help making ends meet and went on welfare in 1990, eventually taking in another grandson. Once welfare reform was approved, Streets accepted a work assignment that combined training and working as a receptionist at a local social service organization.

Streets, now 55, is grateful for the job training she received and said it led her to a good job as a typist with the city of Dayton.

"They give you food, they give you medical. You just can't beat it," Streets said of the welfare system. But, she said, "You've got to work for something. Nothing in life is free. If you get off your butt and do something positive you feel better. It worked for me."

Not long ago, "welfare mothers" were political pariahs. These women and their families were a favorite target of politicians and scorned in the public arena. At worst, they were portrayed as lazy and manipulative; at best, they were victims of a system that both liberals and conservatives said trapped them in a life of poverty and dependence.

In 1996, a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton fulfilled a promise to "change welfare as we know it," enacting the landmark Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The law dramatically revamped a welfare system that began in the Roosevelt Administration as a program for widows and evolved into a seemingly never-ending source of welfare checks for poor people.

Under the revamped system, states get federal grants — called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families — and are responsible for offering the poor cash assistance and work supports, such as child care and transportation subsidies. Thanks to the change that made childless people ineligible for cash assistance, 70 percent of welfare households are now single women with children.

Furnas, the Springfield-Burkhardt Neighborhood Association president, sees the strain in her east Dayton neighborhood, particularly in the wake of the recession.

"I get calls that they're losing their house, their utilities are shut off, they don't have any medical insurance so they can't go to the doctor," she said. "(Welfare reform) just created a larger number of working poor."

States like Ohio, in the face of a weakened economy and a strapped state budget, sliced resources for some anti-poverty programs. The cuts cost Montgomery County $1.6 million, forcing reductions in programs that help people finish job training or find and keep jobs.

The economic downturn has also battered state budgets and cut into the funding for many of the programs that made welfare reform successful. Cuyahoga County sued the state of Ohio after the legislature last fall used federal welfare money to help cover the state's $1.5 billion budget deficit.

http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/project/welfare/0616welfare.html

[Petronski]

Scott Pelley was at one time not this dogmatic. But he's been sucking at Rather's teat for too long not to go loco-socialist. It's a Columbia Broadcasting thing, I guess, considering that they spawned that treacherous bastard Cronkite, as well as, back in the day, Daniel ("Coffin-dodger") Schorr.

[Uncle Miltie]

It is well documented that the number one health problem facing poor Americans is obesity.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Demand increases for free food.

I am shocked, SHOCKED!

Adam Smith must be spinning in his grave! To imagine that there would be a big demand for free stuff!

;-)

[livius]

Thanks for posting this. I knew someone who had seen it and was very upset, believing every word of it. I told her it was clearly a hit-piece on Bush, and I was glad to see that another Freeper caught it, too.

Nobody is starving, and these folks wouldn't starve even if they had no food bank to go to. They can't budget for food because they probably spend their food stamps at McDonald's or buying some other kind of prepared food. Maybe as a component of accepting food stamps, recipients should have to go to a budget management class. This is not to mention a cooking class, since the people I have seen spending food stamps generally buy primarily expensive boxed or frozen items, and clearly do very little cooking, since I virtually never see them buying raw ingredients for anything.

But a culture of passivity has grown up in certain places. When I lived in the Mid-West years ago, there was a rash of plant closings. Some towns withered and died, but some found new industries; some people went on welfare and probably stayed there until forced off it, but others went out and retrained and have been working ever since. And some people moved away, which, has often been the American solution to seeking greater opportunity.

Depression era food-lines my foot!

[#3Fan]

I wonder if these people were driving up to the food lines in their late-model cars.

[Willie Green]

Ms. Escobar has taken the president's policies somewhat personally. "I'm a Republican and I'm not ashamed to say it," she said. "But I'm very upset that they have done nothing for us."

I asked if she had voted for Mr. Bush. "I sure did," she said, then added, "I feel very betrayed."

Jobless, and Stunned

[Plutarch]

Hey, this is from when a Democrat was president!

[chimera]

Garbo: "Oh yeah, sure, this is southeast Ohio, buddy. This is it, this is it and you'll see this pretty well all over the country probably."

For those who don't know, Marietta and the SE Ohio region is in Appalachia. It is and most likely will be an economically-distressed area, even in 'good times' for the rest of the country. They did not pick a representative area, but instead went to a region that will always have its share of poverty and working poor.

BTW, this area of the country did have some decent-paying jobs at one time, in the coal-mining business. The coal in this region is high in sulfur content. The environmentalists succeeded over the years in tightening SO4 emissions from coal-burning power plants, thereby reducing demand for this kind of coal. The result? Mines closed. Unemployment and poverty went up. So what this story doesn't tell you is that a significant amount of the poverty in the region is the fault of environmentalist wackos.

[Grammy]

I lived in Argentina for a year and saw people who were REALLY poor. They had cardboard houses next to the freeway and naked children because they had NO clothes, and no food, running water or sewage treatment or ANYTHING.

I do some work with a food bank now, and you would be amazed at how much most of these people have. Many of them just do the circuit, getting the free goodies from several charities, and sit on their butts and relax. Never have their cable TV (color tv of course) turned off.

The difference between now and depression era is that back then it was shameful to take charity. Now it is quite acceptable, so there are a lot more doing it "just because it's there".

[Countyline]

The program mention above was a totally slanted propaganda piece.

Put up a sign or announce in the newspaper ... FREE COMMODITIES ... FREE FOOD, anywhere, unless there is a system in place to determinine if there is a need, there will be many many people come and stand in line.

Free toys at Christmas where one receives a free toy per child has many that come because it is free, not because there is need. Often, they are completely careless with the toy received casting it aside, before they reach the car.

Commodities have been given for years to many, that do not eat them. The commodities are taken and then sold real cheap and the money is used for beer, cigarettes, drugs, cell phone or pager, etc.. This is done with food stamps as well.

Locally there is a chain that offers Christmas dinner to any one needy over 55. How it actually worked is, over 55's that were eligible because of age made reservations for themselves; and partook of a meal when they needed no assistence of any kind. After all they didn't want to cook and it's a free meal. "Let's go" is the attitude exhibited.

It is sad but true that people will take something they do not want ... if it is free.

The fact that of the money sent to Washington as necessary tax increases, only 25% of the money comes back in the programs. Waste, adminstration, new organizations for monitoring etc. eat it up quickly and the benefit is insufficient. Haven't we learned that the government is grossly inefficient? The Armed Services are what they can manage best? Intra-structure (highway system) which they allocate to the states is another area that functions better at the national level. There are others too. Not welfare.

The government is operationg in the same way as California, and look at the mess with which they are coping. Sorry /rant off.

[lds23]

Maybe like the Jar-Jar website,someone should develop a website that translates "media-whine" into the way it should be reported.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Any indication of how much these poor people have to pay in income tax? Any mention of the lawsuits and trial lawyers who are helping to drive up the cost of medicine, and possibly other essentials. The Agriculture Department figures one out of six children in America faces hunger.

And if we didn't have an Agricultural Department, IRS, ATF, DHHS, DEA, Education Department, HUD, and other unnecessary bureaucracies (and you know they're out there) to fund, perhaps a smaller proportion of kids would face hunger.

[MattAMiller]

I know wealthy people who would be sent into fits of ecstacy if they had the chance to get free food. Most old people I know would sell their grandchildren into slavery for the opportunity to wait in a food line.

Given that I'm suprised that the best example of an average person you can find is a minimum wage earner. The average American does not work at Home Depot. This is especially true for those that are old enough to have 12-year-old children.

[biblewonk]

I'm barfing after the first paragraph.

[jackbill]

On a 40 hour a week basis over 50 weeks $7.50 an hour would total, by my calculation, $15,000 a year. Plus, as Pelley noted, the Paynes get $300 a month in food stamps. Yet at the end of the month they live on potato soup. Sounds to me like really bad money management.

Mr. Pelley forgot to mention (conveniently?) that this individual would have gotten approximately $4,034 in Earned Income Credit, tax-free, from the federal government (you and me) in 2002.

That's the equivalent of an additional $2 per hour, tax free.

[vidbizz]

Given that the Media says we are all overweight & eating too much, a food line with hungry people should be a positive thing. No?

[dasein64]

No reporter should be able to get by with reporting on the poor without citing the other benefits they are already getting from the government. HUD, food stamps, wic, health care, all of the programs for children which include breakfast and lunch at school. I know parents who bought DVD's and every conveivable new gadget on the market who are on food stamps, wick, and made the rounds of Christmas handouts for their children's gifts. Food stamps are bartered for money or whatever. This is not just one family, it has been going on for years. There is a culture of aid receipents who exchange information with each other as to what is available for any given circumstance. It is a mentality that has absolutely no shame in living off others labors. They will tell you it is government money and hence their entitlement and the govt is too rich to keep all that money. Facts and logic have no place in their world. If push comes to shove, they will become depressed and ill with the latest ailment to qualify for disability. You cannot win with these people and the RAT exploitation of their mostly self-induced plight.

[F.J. Mitchell]

All those films of bread lines during the great depression were black and white for one thing, not in living color.

The people in the lines were genuinely hungry, ragged and soul weary from looking for honest work of any kind, at any wage. They weren't calling themselves hungry because they couldn't afford what they wanted to eat, they didn't have anything to eat. There weren't signs in restraunts and other businesses all over the country that read,"Now hiring", and no takers, as there are today.

Most of the tales of a bad economy and bread lines is a fairy tale invented by the liberal demoncrats and blown out of proportion by their abetting, liberal media.

Before you put too much trust in sixty minutes II, remember their so-called expose of Food Lion and that Chevy pick up truck -why should we believe them now?

[snowstorm12]

Yeah it's Bushs fault and the taxpayers fault that these people wipe out all their food from food stamps in one week because they want to live an overweight lifestyle. It's our fault they have huge appetites. I'm tearing up over here.

In fact shut down the food stamp program and get back to the government cheese program. One crate of food to last the whole month per person of the cheapest stuff available. All the food groups represented and the crate contents approved of by the top nutritionist in the country. They'll find jobs real quick so they can get back to their bennigans or tgi fridays lifestlye. Plus with the daily caloric drop to normal ranges they should lose weight at the same time cutting down on health care costs. Killing 2 birds with one stone.

[Jonathon Spectre]

This will make you see red ping.