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CBO Report Fallout: Specter of Welfare State Jolts Democrats

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Photo Credit: Charles DharapakThe White House and congressional Democrats are trying to limit the fallout from the politically damaging conclusion in a Congressional Budget Office report that the Obamacare entitlement creates a major incentive for some people not to work.

While some critics focused on a finding by the CBO that Obamacare will result in 2.5 million fewer workers over a decade, conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work.

“People used to be stuck in jobs because they needed the health insurance,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and a specialist on health care policy at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “Now they’re going to be prevented from taking jobs because they need the subsidies.”

The CBO forecast continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill on multiple issues. The nonpartisan budget agency’s prediction that the U.S. jobless rate likely will stay above 6 percent through 2016 was revealed as Senate Democrats were preparing a push for another extension of benefits to the long-term unemployed, raising the prospect that the government will face much higher benefit costs over the coming years.

The Senate is expected to stage a test vote Thursday on extending the long-term jobless benefits.

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Federal Judges Running Amok: Florida’s Welfare Drug Testing Nixed, New York’s Gun Restrictions Upheld

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mmw_drugtest_022511Florida’s Welfare Drug Testing Nixed

By Associated Press. A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Florida law requiring applicants for welfare benefits to undergo mandatory drug testing, ruling it was unconstitutional and shouldn’t be enforced.

U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven’s 30-page order made permanent an earlier, temporary ban on the law by the judge.

Gov. Rick Scott had backed the drug testing of prospective welfare recipients, arguing it helped protect taxpayers and families. He said in a statement Tuesday that his administration would appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

“Any illegal drug use in a family is harmful and even abusive to a child,” Scott said…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Federal Judge Upholds NY Gun Restrictions

By Christopher Bedford. A federal judge in Buffalo, N.Y. upheld most of New York’s new gun laws Tuesday, rejecting a challenge that the tight restrictions violated the Second Amendment.

Judge William M. Skretny’s ruling upheld recent laws restricting high-capacity magazines and “assault weapons,” but struck down a seven-round limit for loaded guns, calling that restriction “arbitrary,” as well as “tenuous, strained and unsupported.”

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Undocumented LA County Parents On Pace To Receive $650M In Welfare Benefits

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Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty

A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children.

Approximately $54 million in welfare payments are issued each month…

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Study: Welfare Pays More than Work in Most States

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Looking for a good paying job? Well, look no further.

No, really, stop looking. In 35 states, welfare benefits pay more than a minimum wage job, according to a new study by the libertarian Cato Institute, and in 13 states welfare pays more than $15 per hour.

“One of the single best ways to climb out of poverty is taking a job, but as long as welfare provides a better standard of living than an entry-level job, recipients will continue to choose it over work,” said Michael Tanner, senior policy analyst and co-author of the study.

The study is an updated version of one Tanner put out in 1995 that estimated the full value of welfare benefits packages across the states. The 1995 study found that such tax-free welfare benefits greatly exceeded the poverty level and “their dollar value was greater than the amount of take-home income a worker would receive from an entry-level job.”

Despite efforts to curb welfare spending, many welfare programs and benefits have continued to outpace the income that many workers can receive for working an entry-level job, which disincentivizes work, according to the study.

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: NY Welfare Recipients Eligible for More in Benefits than Teachers Earn

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

A new study finds that a New York mother of two is eligible for $38,004 in welfare benefits–a sum more than the annual salary of a New York entry-level school teacher.

The study, conducted by the CATO Institute, says in many states welfare pays better than work. Topping the list of wage-equivalent benefits for a mother and two children was Hawaii at $60,590. Idaho came in last with $11,150.

The study found that 33 states and the District of Columbia offer welfare benefits that pay recipients more than an $8-an-hour job would. Twelve states and the District of Columbia offer welfare packages that pay better than a $15-an-hour job does.

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Not on Welfare or Living Below Poverty Line? Never Mind, Here’s Your Free Obamaphones

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Photo Credit: National Review The Federal Communications Commission oversees the so-called Lifeline program, created in 1984 to make sure impoverished Americans had telephone service available to call their moms, bosses, and 911. In 2008, the FCC expanded the program to offer subsidized cell-phone service, and since then, the expenses of running the program have soared. In 2012, the program’s costs had risen to $2.189 billion, up from $822 million before wireless carriers were included. As of June, there were 13.8 million active Lifeline subscriptions.

To be eligible for Lifeline, the applicant is supposed to be receiving some significant government benefit — food stamps, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, public housing assistance, etc. But because welfare eligibility has expanded under the Obama administration, more people than ever before are qualified to receive “free” cell-phone service — part of the reason why Lifeline mobiles have become commonly known as Obamaphones. Alternatively, applicants can qualify if their household income is less than 136 percent of the federal poverty line.

But as with any federal program with too much funding, too little oversight, and perverse financial incentives, Lifeline has become infamous for rampant fraud and abuse. There have been news reports about recipients flaunting dozens of subsidized phones. And in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on an FCC audit of the top five Lifeline providers, which found that “41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn’t demonstrate their eligibility or didn’t respond to requests for certification.”

The FCC supposedly buckled down on eligibility standards last year and established other safeguards aimed at reducing fraud. I was curious about how tough it was to get one of these phones, so last month, I hit the streets of New York. And out of respect for the law and my journalistic integrity, I did not lie to obtain a phone.

Read more HERE about how the author acquired two free Obamaphones even though she didn’t lie and obviously didn’t qualify.

Food Stamp Recipients are Shipping Welfare-Funded Groceries to Relatives Overseas

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Photo Credit: J.C. RiceFood stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.

The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans.

A spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said welfare benefits are reserved for households that buy and prepare food together. She said states should intervene if people are caught shipping nonperishables abroad.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. has been Working “for Years” to “Gut Welfare Reform”

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Photo Credit: APThe Obama administration was planning to weaken the welfare work requirements as far back as 2009, GOP lawmakers charge.

An internal Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) memo from 2009 released Tuesday by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp explores the legal justifications to allow the HHS secretary to waive work and other requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) that were part of the 1996 welfare reform law.

Last summer the Obama administration issued an Information Memorandum allowing states apply to waive the TANF work requirement. At the time, the administration said this was due to requests from some states for more flexibility and was meant as a way to test strategies “to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”

Republicans, including then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney, charged that the action “gut” the 1996 welfare reform.

According to Hatch and Camp, the memo shows that the Obama administration was looking to find ways to get around the work requirement years in advance of receiving requests from states.

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Boston Bombers Received Mass. Welfare Benefits (+video)

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Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Relatives and news reports have indicated that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s descent into extremist Islam began around 2008 or 2009, when the ethnic Chechen met a convert identified only as “Misha,” began to become more devout, and sought out jihadist and conspiracy theorist websites, and the rabidly anti-Semitic propaganda tract, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

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In Welfare We Trust: One-Sixth of Federal Budget is Now Welfare

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Yes, it looks like a wedding announcement out of The Onion, but when it comes to making a killing off the never-ending “War on Poverty,” the marriage of convenience between the financial services industry and federal bureaucrats is no laughing matter.

The idea that government welfare programs could eliminate poverty, rather than temporarily alleviate its worst impacts during hard times, took root during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiative. From modest beginnings, a panoply of federal welfare programs expanded and multiplied to the point where they now consume one-sixth of the federal budget—some $588 billion last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

This is a lot of spending—even by contemporary standards—and this figure doesn’t even include the current explosion in unemployment benefits, as these are considered social “insurance” payouts rather than welfare. Nor does it include Social Security or Medicare, our largest and most rapidly growing federal expenditures. To make matters worse, these programs, which were designed to keep the elderly out of poverty, are entitlements not yet subject to means testing, so payments go to rich, middle class, and poor alike.

With anti-poverty programs enjoying meteoric growth thanks to the economic policies of the current and previous administrations, we may someday look back fondly on the days when we “only” had to fork over half a trillion a year to support the longest and least successful “war” in American history, with no sign of stopping.

How many civil servants with good pay and benefits does it take to do all this poverty fighting? Try as I might to discover the answer I finally gave up, surprised that I couldn’t locate a definitive study enumerating the number of federal, state, and government-funded private employees whose livelihood depends on administering the ever expanding stream of tax dollars flowing to the poor. Is it any wonder that these entrenched bureaucrats have managed to slowly expand the definition of poverty to include a standard of living that would have been considered middle class back when the war on poverty started?

Read more from this story HERE.