Many people are struggling in this tough economy. Some of us work two jobs to make the same pay we used to with just one. Some of us have started side businesses or spend our nights going back to school. I speak with people every day who are in this situation, and they take it as a slap in the face that some people decide to sit at home and collect welfare.
There are many among us who need help to get by. Most of us agree that those who cannot provide for themselves because of age or disability should get the help they need. However, Maine’s abnormally high level of welfare participation is an indication that taxpayers are helping more than just the needy. Well-intentioned Democrats have, through decades of power in Augusta, grown Maine’s welfare system to an unsustainable level.
The folly of their policy is twofold. First, it creates a culture of dependency for many, whereby some people expect handouts from the rest of us and lose motivation to provide for themselves. Second, it cripples our state budgets, requiring ever-increasing taxes that drain resources from the private sector of our economy — the side of the economy that we should be helping, so those on welfare have opportunities for work. This is why welfare reform is one of the most important initiatives that the Republican-led Legislature has undertaken.
Mainers recognize the need for welfare reform, and it is shown in numerous polls to be one of our highest priorities. Republicans were trusted with this task because we understand the importance of making welfare a safety net of last resort, not a way of life. We went into the majority in the Legislature in 2010 tasked by voters with reforming our broken welfare system, and we followed through.
When Republicans were elected to majorities in the House and Senate in 2010, these were the problems we faced, according to the Maine Heritage Policy Center. Maine ranked:
• Third in the nation for the number of households on TANF cash welfare (4.9 percent).
• Second for the number of households receiving food stamps (13.8 percent).
• Second for food-stamp error rate (10.4 percent).
• Third for number of residents enrolled in Medicaid (27 percent).
• Second for welfare spending as a percentage of overall state spending (30.5 percent).
We undertook a series of reforms to bring Maine’s excessive welfare system under control. The Republican welfare reform:
• Capped TANF cash benefits at five years, which is the federal standard, ending unlimited lifetime benefits, except in cases of extreme hardship, such as old age or disability.
• Ended MaineCare (Medicaid), TANF and food stamp benefits for noncitizens.
• Required those convicted of drug felonies to be drug tested before receiving welfare.
• Capped methadone treatment at two years (previously unlimited) and reduced benefits from $70 to $60 per week.
• Required private insurance to be used before MaineCare when available;
• Reduced staffing and compensation and instituted reorganization in the Department of Health and Human Services.
• Substituted generic drugs for name brands.
We also enacted measures to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are protected from welfare fraud and abuse, reflecting Republicans’ belief that those who misuse welfare must be held accountable both as a deterrent to such behavior and as a matter of principle. The reform:
• Authorized DHHS to recover improperly received general assistance and MaineCare benefits.
• Banned the use of Electronic Benefit Transfer cards at liquor stores, gambling facilities and adult entertainment businesses.
• Made the unauthorized transfer or possession of EBT cards a Class D crime.
• Imposed strict new sanctions for people who violate TANF rules;
• Made it easier to suspend payments to MaineCare providers accused of fraud.
• Added eight fraud investigator positions at DHHS.
• Requested the federal government allow Maine to require photo identification for EBT cards, as some EBT recipients have bartered their food stamp benefits to ineligible individuals in exchange for other items.
Republican legislators made incredible progress in reforming Maine’s welfare system. They were elected in part to fix the system, and they followed through with serious reforms. The work, however, is not done. There is still much that can be done to make Maine’s welfare system fairer, more efficient, less costly to taxpayers and less encouraging of dependency.
Rep. Ray Wallace, R-Dexter, serves on the Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development Committee.
That’s a good start. Why not require individuals to keep receipts for purchases made with EBT ‘money’ received at an ATM, and make those receipts available for inspection by a DHHS investigator when requested?
Because that would require hiring more case workers, and as we all know LePage has no interest in creating jobs and putting people to work. If people could get decent jobs, he wouldn’t have the people on assistance to blame for the crime (in his eyes) of being on assistance.
government jobs are not creating jobs, it is creating more tax payer burden. public sector “jobs” produce nothing, deliver nothing, and should have a cost benefit limiting factor, however because it is not a private business that has to live within market rules government jobs lack oversight and are overpaid.
Yea cause a starting pay for a job that requires a 4 year degree of 35k a year is being overpaid. Especially when you consider their case loads are almost twice what they should be due to cuts in staffing.
Tom next time your house , if you actually have a house, is on fire, you need an ambulance or have a street full of snow just remember that according to you public employees produce and deliver nothing. I am so sick and tired of hearing how public employees do nothing that it makes me want to throw up. I run a business in the private sector and have for close to thirty years and I am damned happy that we have people working in the public sector. As far as public sector employees being overpaid when was the last time you ran into a burning building to rescue someone or jumped into the freezing waters of the Penobscot to haul a civilian to safety.
the problem with these emotional knee jerk arguments is you are looking at a small section of “public sector”. I never said public safety jobs are some kind of boondoggle scam.
There are certain jobs that are part of a basic societal contract. police/fire/ems i.e. public safety is part of this. It is a service that has become standardized as accepted and necessary for us to go about our daily lives with more safety and peace of mind. However, we as tax payers eat these costs every budget cycle. We have some power in referendum votes at local and state level but the big government in Washington just does what they want. The create bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy some to appease the liberals department of education which is utterly failing… and some for the conservative crowd department of homeland security… which is a huge noose on our liberty and another massive tax payer drain.
Yeh not every state social worker is making bank. The administrators do pretty well though. Federal employee’s make out quite well talking grades 10-15 in the mid steps. But they are public employees they go into the job knowing they are servants to people and shouldn’t be fortune seekers. If they want to make big money they obviously would have gone into the evil private sector.
So when someone calls you on your false blanket statements you call it knee jerk. You are the one who made a blanket statement and then try to make it sound like someone who calls you on it is the bad guy. Oh and by the way last time I checked the guy that cleaned out the sewers or plowed the snow wasn’t in the public safety classification.
many towns and cities put some or all of their municipal work out to bid. I think that private entities could do those jobs at less expense to the tax payer just as well. If they don’t they lose their contract and aren’t applicable for future bids.
However my blanket statement is not fundamentally wrong. Even though there are government/public jobs and functions that are crucial to the fabric of our society they are all a tax burden. Where as all private enterprise is or at least should be taxable.
I am not calling you a bad guy but saying you want to throw up and your sick to your stomach and asking me when my last act of valor was is pathos heavy. I tend to rely on logical arguments. Perhaps I was slightly heavy handing saying they produce nothing or deliver nothing. I just tend to see the value of peace of mind differently then others. I have seen budget reports for public safety and DPW for some towns in maine and nh and its a ton of money. Yes I know that every public safety employee probably has the capacity for exceptional bravery but it is fairly rare they are called upon in that fashion. Police spend copious amounts of time to enforce a ridiculous drug war and keep the prisons full or enforce traffic rules to raise revenue. EMS are used often as a taxi cab and transport when little or no immediate medical attention is required. fire fighters ehhh I don’t know what they do but I know they aren’t fighting a fire their entire shift probably training or doing PT which is a requirement of their job but point being they aren’t rescuing babies 24/7
Does this mean I want to abolish these services no way. Just saying I see the cost – benefit ratio and it is very expensive to maintain these things for peace of mind. If we had privatized ems and fire the services would be paid on a per call bases through insurance but with no guarantee to callouts it would be difficult to make any money so it would have to be at least semi-salary based and therefore probably not a big saving in the long run. So there are some things it might just not be fiscally wise to privatize.
Your article nicely ruins the narrative the Left wants to maintain that the Republican-led Maine legislature did nothing and accomplished nothing. Trouble is, the facts speak otherwise. AND many things were done in a bi-partisan fashion, yet another truth many libs cannot handle.
Oh, the Republican-led Maine legislature accomplished things, alright.
Too bad their most notable “accomplishments” are right wing monstrosities with disastrous consequences for the working people of our state.
Like what?
Well, there was the voter ID law which was part of a nation-wide GOP voter suppression campaign which ostensibly combatted a problem that doesn’t exist, there was healthcare “reform” which screwed over patients in favor of big pharmaceuticals, and of course there this welfare “reform” which screws over Maine’s neediest citizens in an attempt to purge the system of moochers who are just going to find another way to game the system anyway.
Thank you.
The number of people on welfare by and large reflects the suffering of millions of Mainers. Governor LePage does NOT create jobs, yet blames the lack of jobs on the people who are unemployed, have no money, and need assistance.
The fact that there are a LOT of people on welfare shows the effect of the economic downturn, which began under GW Bush. Republicans have opposed all efforts to turn the economy around, aiming to keep as many people as desperate as possible, for their own (hoped-for) political gain.
Yes, some people receive benefits who should not. It’s worth investigating, though the savings would be a drop in the bucket compared to rescinding tax breaks for millionaires (state and federal) and pursuing corporate fraud.
Say, Mr Romney, show us some more tax returns…
“millions of Mainers” . Since when is the population in Maine numbering in the “millions”? Last count in ’11 was at 1.3 million.
Thank you–you corrected the only error in my comment, revealing that you cannot disagree with the rest of what I pointed out.
I should have written hundreds of thousands of Mainers; I was thinking in terms of the US as a whole, as well.
there are many people who technically aren’t breaking the laws using general assistance. The requirements have been extremely lax for a long time. I have seen several generations on welfare programs as a constant source of income. Not all of these people are bad people just not motivated to make slightly more working 40-60 hours a week then they make doing nothing.
We need to work on limited GA programs all together. We need to see legitimate enrollment go down. people between 18-65 should be contributing to society and their communities.
There are cases where people are to old, sick or, crippled to do much and they will need help but we need to really focus in on finding a way people with disabilities can be part of the world they live in and can contribute. If handicapped or disabled people can work 10 hours a week at walmart greeting people or hannaford stocking shelves then they have done something and we as community members and tax payers can pick up the tab for their remaining expenses knowing at least they are out there doing their best.
Continuing along that same line, those who collect benefits and are physically able to work but are not currently working should be required to do some type of volunteer work in their community. By volunteering they are giving back to the community that is supporting them, gives them something to fill the hole in their resume and may even give them some additional training that they can turn into a paying job.
I agree with many of your points. I see two problems–one is a lack of jobs for everybody, and especially for people with little or no work history. Another is the fact that politicians keep trying to end ALL help for everyone, without taking the time to sort out the truly needy folks from anyone else, or to create appropriate jobs & access to them.
government cannot literally create jobs. that can create an environment in which private enterprise can create jobs.
Though I would tend to rationalize government jobs like public works as “working welfare” at least we are getting something out of the deal.
I also don’t see many politicians trying to completely end assistance programs. that would be a complete political boon. I am sure there are what I see as radicals that call for an end to all assistance and then some who call for complete reliance/communism. I think they are the exception though not the rule.
Please point to ONE law proposed that tries to end ALL help for EVERYONE. Thanks in advance.
Ryan and Romney are marching to whatever beat Grover Norquist chooses to play. His avowed aim is to shrink government (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all welfare programs–but NOT the military) to the size where it can be “drowned in a bathtub.” Ended, eliminated, destroyed. No careful sparing of the truly needy versus the not-needy.
At a summit sponsored by Americans for Prosperity (a front group started by oil billionaire David Koch of Koch Industries), he explained: “We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go…. We just need a president to sign this stuff….Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States…. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.”
The legislation is clearly a secret and will not be unveiled until after the election, if Romney & Ryan win. That’s vital, because if they let people discover the specifics of their destructive plans, no one would vote for them. They want people to believe that only the non-deserving disabled, elderly, and impoverished people will be harmed by destroying the social safety net. But it will be everyone who might ever become poor, disabled, or elderly.
Thanks for demonstrating that you can not point to even ONE law that would end ALL help for EVERYONE.
I am not a romney/ryan fan obviously but you are speaking in generalizations and just want something to hate/fear. You realize the president doesn’t actually draft legislation? you realize it has to pass through our bicameral legislature before the president can sign it into law?
Everyone makes a big deal about the president and laws… but besides just saying from the get go “I wont sign this bill if it has X in it or excludes Y” the executive doesn’t impact law design as much as our congress.
All that aside rich people have said things like that for years and have scoffed at our political system and the super wealthy elite are connected to all politicians at the top. If you think obama isn’t connected to the same money strings as romney then you are probably willfully naive. Obama is probably more connected and dependent than Romney because he is less independently wealthy.
What has Barrack Obama done to improve this country and Maine? What did democrats in Maine do for 40 years to improve Maine? What specifically do republicans do to make sure that the economy will not recover? What does Romney’s tax return have to do with any of this?
If these Phony Republicans really wanted to do something constructive they would work on securing reforms that ended discrimination for these people of need in the workplace and saw to it that the system had laws encouraged support of these people in supporting themselves as well as livable wages rather than throwing them out on the street and calling them names!
Lepage is striving to be like the mainstream. Striving for mediocrity is such an admirable goal.
Well your crew ran the State for 40 years, why didn’t they do that?
Just getting that much closer to Mississippi. Thank you Scrooges.
Good job on the reforms…Keep at it…Thankfully the leftist whiners on here are but a tiny minority…Poll after poll shows the VAST majority of Mainers support this…
Yea cause the VAST majority of Mainers love seeing their mentally ill and elderly neighbors not getting the care they need, not being able to heat their homes, and not being able to pay their rent. Deny it all you want, but the truth is the majority of the money going through DHHS is being used on the minority (mentally ill and elderly) of consumers.
Its funny, the leftist whiners probably have the best plan of them all to reduce welfare. Free and easily accessible abortions and free and easily accessible contraceptives. Its the Republicans that do not want these things. If we implemented just those 2 things we would save so much money on welfare and save so much money of crime. Yes there is a cost to preform these things, but the savings would completely trump the cost.
READ THE ARTICLE !!
” Maine ranked:
• Third in the nation for the number of households on TANF cash welfare (4.9 percent).
• Second for the number of households receiving food stamps (13.8 percent).
• Second for food-stamp error rate (10.4 percent).
• Third for number of residents enrolled in Medicaid (27 percent).
• Second for welfare spending as a percentage of overall state spending (30.5 percent). ”
SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE for legal MAINE & United State citizens are going to be cut by CONGRESS after the the “lame duck” bums all hope to get re-elected. FIVE TRILLION IN DEBT THE LAST FOUR YEARS.
Millions nationwide milking the sytem as boatloads arrive daily to join the party. Jobs, the right to vote and the money’s for free !!
Facts mean very little to the people on the far left.
You left out how they screwed the hourly working man with their so-called refore to the unemployment laws , workmen’s Comp, and how they stuck it to the DeCoster Egg Farm workers. Also the changes in the tax laws to give the rich a break on inheritance tax and income tax.
The inheritance tax isn’t always for the “rich” man. I know a man that had to sell the family property he inherited to pay the taxes.
Inheritance was raised to 1 million! Just how much was your poor friend’s new acquirement worth? Poor Fellah!
Was years ago. A large farm with hundreds of acres near the coast. Was the family farm and had been in the family for generations. Family was land rich money poor.
This should have been marked clearly as an editorial.
posted in opinion section as “special to BDN”…
The fact that so many Mainer’s require assistance is not an indictment of these poor souls. Rather it is straightforward proof that the GOP economic policies of the Bush era are a total failure. Now Romney wants to bring it all back as though the (Depression) recession of the last 10 years never happened. Good grief! As for being “closer to mainstream” this again is just the GOP doctrine of removing the last safety net that for many is literally the difference between life and death in our country. There but for the grace of God go I, and you also.
george bush has been out of office for 4 years. you need to wake up and realize the reason nothing has changed bush-obama is because while their social politics are very different their core economic politics are connected to the same levers pulled by the same masters.
romney/obama doesn’t mater the economy isnt going to change.
Dem. line…Bush fault. Maine has been control and run by the Dems. the last sixteen years.
Ray Wallace and to those who think like he does. Boo hoo.
It’s the economy.
Thank you sir, keep up the good work! We Mainers hate leeches on the public dole more than anything. There is tons of pork that still needs to be cut.