In a better world we'd all be lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness.
Except that Nathan Deal seems to want to keep it as pitch black as possible.
One of the reasons I gradually left the Republican Party was because they ran out of ideas for how to help people like the ones in the article. Welfare reform was a good idea. Earned Income Tax Credits were a good idea. But this is the kind of resentment-fueled zero-sum crumb-grabbing that used to be the province of unreconstructed conservative Democrats (like Nathan Deal and the rest of them who moved into the GOP).
Wouldn't it be great if the unemployed poor on TANF could, say, fill out a common job application and undergo a background check and have it uploaded to a database where employers looking for unskilled or low-skilled workers could find them? It would be like LinkedIn or Monster.com for people who didn't go to college. The unemployed would not have to spend time going from McDonalds to Wal-Mart to the car wash to fill out what is essentially the same application. Employers could access an entire clearinghouse of job seekers without having to wait for them to show up to fill out an application.
That's the kind of pragmatic, non-ideological solution that Republicans don't want to offer or even entertain the idea of. They honestly have no interest in poor people becoming non-poor. The goal is no longer to get people into gainful employment and off of welfare rolls. It's to get them off of welfare rolls and look the other way when they crash and burn or fall through the cracks.
