Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Walker opposed to 'welfare dependency'? Not in the budget.

The current regime's 'relationship' in FitzWalkerstan with the poor in Wisconsin, besides being ultra-rightist and punitive, is filled with odd contradictions that suggest there's a hefty dose of talking point manipulation going on.

For example, we've all heard Gov. Walker say repeatedy, and straight through the election, that his goal is to reduce the number of Wisconsites on government dependency, 'welfare.

And that numbers would prove it, as he said nearly two years ago with visions of election wins in mind:
Not long after I took office, an appointee of mine asked about my objectives for his workforce development agency. He mentioned the previous administration seemed to define success by how many people they could sign up for unemployment benefits.
After thinking about it for a moment, I told him my definition of success was just the opposite

Last Wednesday, I introduced a state budget focused on helping people transition from government dependency to true independence.
So do Walker and Wisconsin GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos - - Walker's lead legislative cheerleader for booting people off public assistance should they fail a mandatory drug test - - remember the goal published in the current state budget which Vos helped get to Walker's desk that supports maintaining the number of state families with children receiving public assistance.

Read into the chart on page 90 of the state budget - - pdf format - - to find this language:
 "Maintain the number of families receiving child care subsidies."
So why would Walker and Vos now be all about cutting that number through positive drug test results scored by parents?  



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What I would like to know is how they plan to handle false positive tests. They do happen and for a person who fails a drug test due to a false positive there needs to be a procedure for appealing an incorrect test. I also want to know who is paying for this. When I was on unemployment (due to no fault of my own [recession]) it would have been a slap in the face to have to go take a drug test to be able to draw on my unemployment since I had been employed for over 35 years before that and have two Associate Degrees. No body wants to be on unemployment or welfare. But, no one (or very few) wants to hire old people either.