Comments on: Your Safety Net on Block Grants

By: PeonInChief

PeonInChief — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:55:18 +0000

When TANF was enacted, Congress and Clinton specifically set it up so that former recipients wouldn’t be tracked. They didn’t want to know what happened to people and, once they were out of the welfare system, they disappeared. But the problem is starting to show up other places–for instance, the increase in infant mortality and low birth weight babies, which happens because girls who were malnourished as children are more likely to have problems in pregnancy as adults.

By: The Raven

The Raven — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:44:56 +0000

Er, “be a shame if anything happened to it.”

By: The Raven

The Raven — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:59:36 +0000

My impression is that Obama and the Dems are being pressed very hard by the corporations. “Nice economy there. Be ashamed if anything happened to it.” It doesn’t help, at least in the sense of fixing things, but if that’s so, we might be able to open up some space for our allies in a position to act. But we need to figure out who is on which side, and that is not going to be easy.

By: Donald Broder

Donald Broder — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:57:44 +0000

“…see if you recognize America in there…it’s getting harder and harder to do so.”

Indeed. What the right and their willing Democratic accomplices are doing is terrible. What this country sorely needs is a leader who can point out where policies of this kind will lead us. Of course, Obama will now run as a populist who means to look out for the 99%, but I’m not convinced. Where has he been?

By: eric

eric — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:16:34 +0000

This is why I couldn’t vote for Clinton in 96 and is related to why I’m not sure I can vote for Obama now. I know these guys are just the figureheads on a ship they can’t quite control, but it is infuriating to have the leaders of the Democratic party, the party that helped create Social Security and Medicare, now talking about cutting back even more on an already shrinking safety net. I might be able to put up with war on Eastasia and handing money over to rich bankers and destroying the environment–but then to take food out of the mouths of poor children? We live in a sick society.

By: The Raven

The Raven — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:10:12 +0000

This was made possible by the conservative Democrats; it was proposed by Bill Clinton. The same faction to which Obama belongs, which controls the Democratic Party, and which, in coalition with the Wall Street Republicans, now governs the USA and will probably do so for at least the rest of the decade – that is, if the Tea Party Republicans don’t simply take over.

“Screaming in language that no one understands / Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands / When we wiped out the bosses / And stormed through the wall / Of the prison they told us would outlast us all // Marat we’re poor / And the poor stay poor / Marat don’t make us wait any more. / We want our rights and we don’t care how / We want a revolution – now.”

By: Kathryn Baer

Kathryn Baer — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:08:18 +0000

I too found the NYT piece very well reported and very timely. And I agree with virtually everything you and your CBPP colleagues say.

But I’m not persuaded that Arizona isn’t using TANF money for tax cuts. The state has been cutting business taxes for some time and approved another round last year. It seems to me that the state would have a harder time reducing tax revenues if it didn’t use TANF funds to shore up programs that have more political support.