WELFARE: A STEP BACK
SECRET PLAN FOR NY GIVEAWAY
A SECRET memo from the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance looks to be a key step in rolling back welfare reform in New York. It outlines a "Back to School" program to give $200- per-child grants to families on welfare and those merely receiving food stamps, without regard to whether the family is complying with the restrictions critical to the 1990s reforms.
Even recipients refusing to comply with work or other requirements would get the cash.
And all recipients would get their grants via a "top-off" on their electronic benefits cards, redeemable at the local ATM. It is unprecedented for Food Stamp recipients to have direct access to cash, raising new concerns over fraud and abuse.
This is an outrageous use of federal stimulus money. Rather than helping our economy grow, it would undermine the most important US social-policy reform of the last half-century, to the detriment of both taxpayers and the poor themselves.
The July 31 OTDA memo to local governments across the state is full of bureaucratic jargon and "welfare speak." But some nuggets stand out:
* The so-called "back-to-school benefit" is awarded based on how many eligible children are in the household -- regardless of whether they're actually attending school.
* If a welfare recipient has a child who is not yet enrolled, or is enrolled but chronically truant, or even dropped out, it doesn't matter -- he or she will still get the cash.
* The awards will go even to recipients under "sanction" -- those refusing to comply with work, job-search or other basic program requirements.
The proposal was developed in secret in consultation with an unnamed private donor (rumored to be billionaire left-wing activist George Soros), who is to donate a reported $35 million to allow the state to draw another $140 million in federal matching funds under a provision in the stimulus bill passed early this year.
The memo cautions, "A press conference will be held Aug. 11 . . . and all communications should be kept internal until that date."
OTDA seems to be making policy and spending $140 million without any real legislative oversight. The lack of transparency and accountability is shocking even by Albany standards.
If the governor and Soros really want to help poor parents of schoolchildren, they can send the money directly to local school officials, who can ensure that needy kids have backpacks with age-approriate school supplies placed directly in their hands.
Beyond all that, after the stimulus money and the private largesse are gone, one can already hear the heartfelt pleas to a future Legislature: You need to tap New York taxpayers to continue this program. After all, it's "for the children."
The essence of welfare reform, nationally and in New York, was restoring the link between benefits and responsible behavior. Ending the entitlement mentality, requiring work and encouraging responsibility for one's own children were all key elements.
Instead of sending checks to idle recipients, we began using the same dollars to reward and support work. The result: shrinking welfare rolls, as millions entered the path to independence, decreased child poverty.
The "Back to School Program" sounds warm and fuzzy, but it's a frontal assault on the guiding principles that made welfare reform work. By handing out checks without regard to any effort to work, exercise parental responsibility or comply with basic program requirements, it marks a small but significant step back toward the bad old system that trapped recipients in dependency and poverty.
Raymond A. Meier served in the state Senate, 1997-2007, NY Post, 8/10/09
