SB 2018-314: Commonsense Welfare Reform Act (Debating)

[Mr. Reactionary]

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Sponsor: Mr. Reactionary

[Mr. Reactionary]

Section II consolidates all federal welfare programs under HHS, roots out fraud, and approves more Administrative Law Judges to hear appeals of program eligibility denials quicker.

Section IIIa expands eligibility for food stamps both in terms of income and asset limits and for felons. It limits eligibility for people with lottery winnings that push them above eligibility, heat and eat scams where local governments give $1 in heating assistance to a bunch of otherwise not federally qualified persons and they get food stamps, and non-working college students.

Section IIIb is the funding part.
b1 and b2 are anti-fraud stuff
b3 allows more food providers to participate in the program
b4 says that bubble gum is not food
b5 and b6 consolidates a bunch of redundant programs under food stamps and keeps the program on target to deliver. All savings realized from these consolidations is immediately put back into the food stamps program to help expand eligibility. It also preserves WIC.

Section IV-a lets us recover mistaken overpayments on our part from SSI recipients

Section IV-b sunsets LIHEAP in 2021

Section IV-c and IV-d sunset a couple of redundant HUD programs

Section IV-e eliminates CDBG money for purely aesthetic things

Section IV-f closes the loophole that lets some people claim unemployment for not having a job at the same time they claim disability payments, which is a program for currently employed persons who cannot work because of the disability. If you do not have a job, you cannot be currently employed.

Section IV-g means tests Unemployment Insurance to keep millionaires from getting welfare

Section IV-h caps long term Unemployment Insurance at about 1 year and a half. Regular UI lasts for 6 months.

Section IV-i adjusts the measurement of local cost of living in determining Section 8 housing assistance amounts to avoid massive swings in eligibility mere blocks from each other. ZIP code averages are more prone to reflect the effect of red-lining than looking at the metropolitan area as a whole.

Section IV-j limits work requirement waivers for TANF

Section IV-k sunsets the program that funds the federal abstinence only grants

Section IV-l consolidates a bunch of self-congratulatory Congressionally created scholarships and redirects the money to the Pell Grant program.
 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am concerned about sun-setting Liheap without some kind of substitute or replacement. A lot of people, particularly in the colder regions in the winter and the hotter ones in the summer months depend on it, particularly those on fixed incomes or living paycheck to paycheck.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I dont think LIHEAP pays for AC in the summer.

Based on patterns, no one will attempt to amend to take the LIHEAP part out but will then cite its inclusion as justification to vote against the bill.

[Sestak]

This is a rather long bill. If possible, I’d like to have until Oct 1 to more thoroughly examine this.

[Mr. Reactionary]

This is a rather long bill. If possible, I’d like to have until Oct 1 to more thoroughly examine this.

K. I dont plan on motioning for a final vote before then.

[fhtagn]

This is a rather long bill. If possible, I’d like to have until Oct 1 to more thoroughly examine this.

It's October 12th.

[Sestak]

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[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Can you explain the reasoning behind this amendment?

[Sestak]

This needs a sponsor.

[Sestak]

Can you explain the reasoning behind this amendment?

-Student Aid belongs in Education
-The FDA belongs with Health
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health should fall within Health as well. We should be trying to treat and help people with these serious issues, not prosecute and incarcerate them.
- Nutrition Education is a valuable cause and should not be abandoned. The same goes for most of the programs cut by (III)(b)(6).
- We should not be screwing people over because we made a mistake with SS payments.
- LIHEAP is valuable for the reasons mentioned above
- People need to be informed when going into the housing market in order to not be taken advantage of
- Richer areas should not be pulling up the Fair Market Rent in poorer areas
- The title X family planning program does a lot more than just fund the abstinence-only grants and should not be eliminated in its entirety.

[Sestak]

This needs a sponsor.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I think you are making a mistake on the Sec. 8 formula. Basing it on ZIP code means a poor black mother living in the hood can only get rental assistance based on the median value of the hood which means she's unlikely to escape and you are clustering poverty. Basing the formula on MSA increases the likelihood that a person in the hood can get out as her benefit amount is no longer pegged to low income neighborhood housing prices but to the citywide average.

[fhtagn]

.........

[Sestak]

This has been removed from the floor due to a lack of sponsor.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Breaking News: Labor party kills bill expanding food stamps for working families; claims too busy doing nothing to consider.

[fhtagn]

More proof that the Labor Party hates poor people.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If this is off the floor, why is still on the noticeboard?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

There were parts of this bill that were most certainly good, including the expansion of food stamps and the consolidation of government agencies. I am deeply disappointed that out of six people, not one could be found to discuss, amend, debate or preserve this bill across several weeks and months. This at the heart I think of our present state of affairs in this game. This bill would have easily been 10 pages long and had a dozen or more amendments over the same period of time, were this a bill before the Senate in 2014 or 2013. I know because I was there and I saw it with my own eyes. We had one bill on welfare related issues that took ten months and amazingly it actually got passed and signed into law, even after its original sponsor Antonio, had left the chamber and its major critic and significant contributing amender shua had also left.

The decline in interest in issues like welfare, education, health care and similar from a policy standpoint is disturbing. Back then we did not lack for the passion and zeal in such on the left that we have now, but we had a genuine interest in actually pursuing such bills and actually working through the mechanics and trying to craft functioning legislation.

That being said, lamenting the fact that we have arrived at our present situation is not going to get us out of present predicament and while I would be obliged to reintroduce similar legislation, I am concerned that it would merely meet the same fate as this and until we see improvements in engagement, I am hesitant to do so.