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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed
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To: LLCF who wrote (74771)3/3/2001 10:22:41 AM
From: flatsville  Read Replies (3) of 436258
 
Here's the short version minus the charts and graphs.

As I said I find it amusing when conservos TALK BIG about state and local governments' ability to meet the social welfare needs of their citizens. These governments have had plenty of opportunity in the past and with rare exception have blown it each time. The solution for the states has been to push off as much of the problem as possible and to relinquish the repsonsibility as quickly as possible to the feds. The most recent example was during the late 1980s early 1990s when a variety of circumstances converged to wreck havoc with state social welfare budgets.

The vodoo economics of the Reagan Admin., burgeoning welfare rolls and a sky rocketing foster care population ( which doubled between 1984-94) stressed state budgets beginning in the mid 1980s if not sooner. The states couldn't even come up with their portion of AFDC funds to get the federal match. What a bunch of pathetic pikers. The old AFDC grant system was open ended to the states. The fed was obligated to assist All they had to do was come up with their share to help their own people and they couldn't...or maybe wouldn't?...who really knows.

As the proverty related trends continued to worsen and more and more people applied for state assistance the country suddenly found itself looking down the barrel of a full blown RECESSION. The unemployment rate went from a low of 5.5% in 1988 to a high of 8% in 1992.

During this mid to late 1980s period state welfare programs slowly began a trend towards moving people from the combined state and federally funded AFDC program to the SSDI program solely funded by the feds because they couldn't afford the growing legions of those seeking assistance. Many of the children in these families had some health, psychological and behavioral problems afterall. With the right assistance from a state case worker on the paper work, a little coaching, some directional steering to the right doctor, perhaps an exaggeration of the truth and a little instruction on the magic words to say a client could have a full blown disability case (and a higher cash benefit on their hands) in no time...all paid for by the feds. (IOW the states encouraged and then taught their citizens how to lie, cheat and steal.)

And so it began...across all 50 states...en mass. During that period you could talk to any state case worker or client receiving benefits and they'd tell you exactly what was happening...off the record of course. The case workers would say that state couldn't handle the case loads and they were under pressure from above to move clients out of state programs. Some clients would say they didn't like having their kids now officially labled "disabled" (though many didn't care,) but felt they had no choice because if they got ejected from AFDC there was no job out there anyway.

Of course the effort to dump the problem somewhere else went too far too fast and the initially slow moving trend became a run away gravy train at the fed's expense. Then someone noticed...Ooops

So tell me about how the great state of Arizona with its' current 400 million dollar budget short fall is gonna handle this locally. In case you havent noticed there is an eerie similarity now to the period described above. Can you say RECESSION?

But don't worry. Come 2002? TANF is up for renewal/reform. By then, if the economy continues to deteriorate, the BIG TALK consevo speak on this issue will be a mere mumbling of the "take this off my hands" variety...it always comes down to that in the end. The block grants can't meet the needs now and they certainly won't in a recessionay environment with high unemployment. It will be the end of welfare reform as we know it.

Good Luck in the meantime.
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