Welfare Reform Bill 2009 (On the President's Desk)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ah.. What type of benefits are talking here and how much would those benefits be?

I support Tmth's amendment. 20 hrs of searching for work is nearly impossible and you forget that it costs money to go out and physically search for a job. Five hours is much more reasonable but I think it a Quantitative measure of how many places you apply to would be more enforcable then a Time requirement.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The most I would be willing to swallow on the Job Search req is 5 hrs. It would be literally impossible to do 20 hrs of Job searching each week.

As I asked before, how much aide are we talking. Vocational Classes are not free you know and are they going to be given enough to support themselves and a Family, at least $1200 a month or more in this area most people have rent twice what ours is or more so thats not even enough. Its a wonder half the frickin country isn't homeless and or living without Electricity. And I know how Sanitation, Cleanliness, and general Health status of people decline when there without electricity. I know, I lived two years like that in upstate NY. Is the aide going to be enough to prevent those sitautions from happening. Its not like you can give them $400 a month or something in cash assisstance, plus a few hundred in Food Stamps and expect them to be able to live above the level of third world paupers. People need at least $1000 in Cash assisstance per month to afford Housing, Electricity, phone(hard to get an interview without a phone, and increasly Internet. As well Gas, and Essentials not covered by Food STamps. Then you get to food Stamps, $300 can buy groceries for a month for one or two but definately not four people. Again I know from experience. It takes $500 -$600 in Food Stamps to provide a family of four with groceries for a month. Yea I know I am talking giving $1600 in aide to people with a family of four, more then you can make working for some. Well to tell you the truth, you can't live on less. Again, I know from experience. Why do you think I support aggresively raising the Minimum wage, the EITC, and the Child tax credit?

I guess I better go to bed or else the moon will change me to a Communist by Midnight.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I oppose both amendments. So Nay.


I don't like arbitrary standards broadly set. In some areas Community service work of the length that is suggested here is hard to come by. Doing more then 5 hrs of Job Searching is impractical especially considering that it costs money to look for a Job and no one seems willing to explain to me just how much benefits will be given out.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Section 3 should simply say that they must apply for a certain number of jobs a month or apply for vocational training to be eligible should they be able-bodied.

Well, in some places, you can't apply for jobs, since there is no avaliable jobs!

True; which is why vocational training should be offered alongside job hunting to allow for a trade or a skill to be learned while unemployed.

This is really the first recession in years that has affected all sectors of the economy as such getting a trade or skill would not guarrentee people employement.

For now I will support Marokai's amendment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Section 3 should simply say that they must apply for a certain number of jobs a month or apply for vocational training to be eligible should they be able-bodied.

Well, in some places, you can't apply for jobs, since there is no avaliable jobs!

True; which is why vocational training should be offered alongside job hunting to allow for a trade or a skill to be learned while unemployed.

This is really the first recession in years that has affected all sectors of the economy as such getting a trade or skill would not guarrentee people employement.

For now I will support Marokai's amendment.

I am willing to scrap Section 3 if it helps retain and move forward the rest of this bill.

Yet I am a little uncomfortable having no requirements at all. I would prefer to have it require people apply at two places per week or something like that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This amendment is really, really, really gross. I can't imagine how anyone in their right mind would imagine this working out fine and dandy in the real world.

Yea, 15 hrs of Job Searching. This might work if you live in New York City or L.A. or something but if you live in a location like I do, where there is little to no public transit and there aren't enough places to apply two doing 1 or 2 hrs a week. How are you doing to do 15hrs of work. I really can't vote for anything more then 2 hrs, maybe 5 hrs at most of job searching.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

NAY all the way. These requirement are unconscionable.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I offer the following, much more reasonable amendment that accounts for those that live in rural areas, which no one in the Senate seems to care about anymore.

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why not as an option include job training programs, such as places that help you create a resume, train for interviews, etc.

I will add that to the second option in my amendment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm cool with Yank's amendment.

What do you mean exactly, by "whichever is longer"?

In some areas getting to 4 or 5 places where you can apply can take that long however for most it can be done in one or two hours in which case they have do more applying till that reach time limit. Since the limits are so low comparatively to the other amendments languages I decided to go with whichever was longer primarily cause unlike Marokai its not that I want no conditions, I just want the conditions to be more reasonable.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nay

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Aye

I like this Senate's legislative skill. Nay to lowering/tinkering, Nay to altering the two to compensate the other, Nay to abolishing it.

What do you people want?

I think the problem is that no one is doing the right kind of tinkering. These hours of job searching is garbage. Make it a combination of community service and/or attending a job training class and/or vocational training. That seems more viable, but no one has introduced that sort of amendment yet.

Cough...I did...cough

Nay

How many people here have any experience (even second hand will do, frankly) of a welfare system? How many have any academic (for want of a better term) knowledge of the subject? How many have, hah, even a decent general knowledge of it?

I'm just curious, that's all.

Myself and my family do, and I believe NCY does as well. I can tell you all these ridiculous restrictions, no matter how you pretty them up, will not go over well. You restrict, or further stigmatize, public assistance and discourage people from getting it.

Yes I have experienced the system but not in its entirety. I have never lived in public housing or anything like that but I have been on Food Stamps, and Medicaid several Times including the present time.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Aye