So the peckerwoods at the Arizona legislature did what they said they were going to do last year when the state budget was in shambles:
On Friday, Arizona became the most stringent state in the nation for aid to poor families raising children.
That's when a one-year lifetime limit on cash assistance kicked in for families receiving help from the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program. It means an estimated 2,500 people — including 1,500 kids — will no longer qualify for the modest stipends the program provides. The average payment is $278.
The feds allow states to provide up to five years of assistance under the TANF program, and many states do. As of last year Arizona was one of a few states that allowed only two years before they booted poor families off the program. That’s not two years in a row, it’s two years total.
It was bad enough last year when the Republican cabbage-heads passed this vile policy, claiming the reduction was necessary because the budget was in the toilet. But now the state is running a surplus, and even though Democrats and advocates for children and the poor have urged the legislature to reinstate the modest two-year limit, the GOP scumbuckets, prompted by Gov. Ducey, won’t budge.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Darlene Newsome, who runs the UMOM shelter for homeless families. "Are they telling people you can only be extremely poor for one year in your life?”
Most families who receive the stipends get a couple hundred dollars a month. For the very poor that’s often the difference between food/no food, home/no home, and medicine/no medicine.
Then there’s this stinker: Pissing all over poor people like this will save the state about $4 million. At the same time, the legislature earmarked $5 million for three university think tanks seeded with Koch Brothers’ cash: The Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona, the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, and the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty also at ASU. The universities didn’t ask for the money because these “freedom centers” don’t teach a single student.
So let me get this straight: Arizona is running a surplus, but Gov. Ducey’s mean-spirited toadies at the legislature won’t appropriate $4 million to help the very poor, but they will spend $5 million to underwrite a few university positions for Koch Brothers’ free-marketers. Among their heartless missions: conduct research and write reports that encourage elected officials not to fund assistance programs for the poor.
The Kochs’ investment in Gov. Ducey’s election is paying off nicely. Hell, Arizona is even funding universities to do the brothers’ ugly work, while poor families go without.