I was in DC at the end of last month with a group of women called "Women for Economic Justice (WEJ). We were testifying on the abysmal failure of Welfare Reform called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, (TANF). Ironically, it is officially called, "The Personal Responsibility Act", which was aimed at low income mothers, written by a bunch of elitist white men who are/were CEOs of things like war machine producers, banks and insurance companies.
More over the Fold ...
Welfare Reform came about when a rich Heritage Foundation elitist named Robert Rector came upon some DC low income mothers who were going to college while on welfare. They had fled their racist, sexist Virginia communities who had exploited their families literally for centuries and had come to DC to get college degrees. Rector thought they were "using the system" ~ unlike what he believed his rich friends were not doing when they "use the system" while sitting around the pool collecting their tax-free dividends.
So Rector ran home and wrote the Welfare Reform Law, which President Clinton signed into law. Around the same time the Adoption and Safe Families Act was also signed into law.
Scroll down to the following link to page 13 where you will see in living color a graph where the Feds created a landslide and huge adoption and foster care industry that literally spends 1000% more to take kids from their families than to preserve them. (ASFA). This avalanche of money is mostly aimed toward harvesting children for adoption from low income families who do not have the means to fight false allegations when someone comes and takes their kids. BTW, this graph does not reflect that the paltry TANF funding is also being used to fund DSHS agencies to take kids ~ NOT to help families. Indeed to destropy them.
My state's (WA) DSHS agency has not been monitored by the Health and Human Services in over 7 years. In other words the Feds have been handing over millions to these agencies without question and thousands of families are torn apart to harvest children for adoption.
You might think that perhaps these low income kids are "better off" in loving upper income homes, but kids actually do better in their homes with services provided instead of the billions being used to take them..
The problem is that they would rather spend the 1000% more to take these kids because of the huge industry it supports that "creates jobs" off the backs of little kids. Worse, the courts rubber stamp anything that is alleged and the family have little means to defend themselves and their kids from these allegations. Therefore without any real "due process" these low income families live with those accusations as "fact" for the rest of their lives even when they are not true.
While I was in DC one of my sisters from GA told me they had an internal document from their TANF offices urging case managers to counsel desperate parents to give up their kids for adoption ~ thus ensuring the Title IV-E and B monies. When that does not work, then it opens up the door to take these kids and adopt them out without helping the families. Most of these families are low wage workers with no resources who do not even make enough to pay the rent, have no health insurance or any assistance, not even food stamps.
The Adoption and Foster care Industrial Complex is not content with the bottomless pit of Title IV entitlements that give literally 1000% more to take kids, oh no. They also go in and take out 1/3 of the states' TANF money as well for their CPS, foster care services, courts, CASA, contractors, non-profits and other personnel. Little is left over to actually help families with something as simple as affordable housing or affordable health care.
These people have no problems literally taking even the paltry TANF discretionary monies that is meant to to help desperate families and adding it to the already huge entitlements they already get. Literally out of the mouths of babes.
While in DC I realized I was visiting "Alice's Wonderland" where the Mad Hatter is considered sane. Now President Obama has proposed sinking over $880 million dollars into marrying poor women off ~ where over 70% of them fled domestic violence situations. I asked my Senator's aide, "What is he going to do with this money? Is it going to be used as a dating service to help us find these sugar daddies? How is it that you assume men are just 'wallets with legs" as if they aren't in the same boat we are?"
No answer for that one from DC, but I have a teeny tiny suggestion ... That $880 million could be used for education, housing, food, creating jobs with livable wages, and oh so much more. But n-o-o-o-o!
You might be interested in one lone Progressive professional group who is trying to reform the CPS system; http://www.nccpr.org. The Director is Richard Wexler (no relation to Congressman Robert Wexler, I asked him, lol). They are out there TRYING to raise conscience about what is happening. They have gathered the research that are smoking guns about what is being done to low-income families in the name of "concern" which is really just another reason to keep their agencies funded and has little to do with the safety of kids, family support, or family preservation.
But the greedfest goes on. It never stops. The trip to the Hill told me these people need something to straighten them out. I went there to speak because it was important to me to go all the way across the continent and give witness to what I have seen and lived through. But the actions did little and still all these Hill people seem to know is to yell the same as Alice's Queen who screams, "Off with their heads! Off with their heads!"
I know what Mr Moore means and his sadness, I have it too. Perhaps a few shamrocks from Mr Moore will do it, maybe even cover the rabbit hole ~ but after going to DC for the first time in my life ...
He and I ain't holdin' our breath ...
Cat in Seattle