State Health and Human Services Director Maura Corrigan said in a statement that "the fiscal reality is that we cannot afford to provide lifetime cash
assistance to recipients who are able to work."
“Michigan can no longer afford to provide lifetime assistance,” said Sheryl Thompson, an official with the state Department of Human Services,
which reported that of those being dropped from the state’s cash-assistance rolls, some 1,200 families had been receiving payments for
10 years , more than 700 others for a dozen years , and an additional 400 families had been getting payments for
14 years.
I think that sums it up. We aren't talking the elderly, disabled, those caring for them. Its people who could work. They had been under Federal
welfare reforms adopted in the mid-1990s (under Democrat Bill Clinton, I might add) which previously limited benefits to needy families to 60 months
within a lifetime, which doesn't seem to have been enforced before.
We have gotten used to giving unemployment benefits for 79 Weeks (1.5 years) and then extending them even further and giving food stamp assistance to
30,000 college students. You know who pays for unemployment....businesses and taxpayers. The extension in unemployment benefits has surely had an
effect on business hiring. Just from the $$$ some companies have to pay out for unemployment, I'm sure it has keep hiring even down more.
Sooner or later there comes a time when you've got to go fish rather than be handed fish indefinitely.
Social programs should be a safety net, not a permanent situation for people.
edit on 7-9-2011 by pavil because: (no reason given)