Kudos to ThinkProgress for reporting on this:
Poor families in Wisconsin will soon get kicked off of food stamps and evicted from their public housing under a package of laws passed Tuesday by the state Senate.
Gov. Scott Walker (R) pushed state lawmakers to double down on his previous tweaks to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other safety net systems. Taken together, the earlier changes and those passed Tuesday make Wisconsin a living experiment with very old conservative policy ideas. The changes are hard-hearted and soft-brained, a recipe for greater human misery masquerading as a plan to lift the destitute back toward dignity.
One bill ups existing work requirements for food stamps. Another sets humiliating new conditions for eligibility to live in public housing. Others set aside money to pay private companies that contract with the state if those companies can realize further savings.
And Walker’s plan is very dangerous:
“It’s going to create hunger in the Dairy State. More children, more families, more working people of low incomes are going to go without food,” said Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Milwaukee Hunger Task Force. “Vilifying low-income people for needing assistance to put food on the table is just bad policy.”
Ed Bolen, a senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said a statewide program would fail to adequately account for all of those receiving assistance. Some of those people might not be able to work, for reasons the state program does not fully grasp.
“Any time you mandate that in order to get food assist you have to do X, Y and Z, especially for 30 hours a week, you’re going to find people who can’t do it but the state hasn’t identified that they can’t do it,” Bolen said. “You just can’t screen them closely.”
The Wisconsin proposal includes more money for workforce training programs, something Tussler said was not the case in other states where Republican governors have proposed workforce overhauls.
Both proponents and opponents of the overhaul say they believe the Wisconsin plan will serve as a blueprint for other states looking to reform their welfare programs. Maine and Nebraska have already implemented similar plans, and Republican governors in other states have suggested welfare reform is on their agendas.
“You want to have a welfare system that’s compassionate, that gives assistance to those who need it, but welfare shouldn’t be a one-way handout,” said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity. “You don’t want to just be giving month after month of assistance without requiring anything for that assistance. It’s bad for the taxpayer and for the recipients.”
It is not an accident, observers say, that Walker is the governor taking the lead on the new overhauls. A quarter-century ago, Walker’s predecessor, Tommy Thompson, led state-level welfare reform that spurred and informed federal welfare reform signed into law by former President Clinton.
We have a real opportunity to unseat Walker this year and we have a number of great candidates running for governor. Below is a list of the top candidates. Click below to donate and get involved with their campaigns.
Tony Evers
Dana Wachs
Kathleen Vinehout
Andy Gronik
Paul Soglin