The monthly benefit would be given for each child two years old or younger, with a requirement that the money be spent only on diapers.

The benefit would not begin being awarded until 2020, and is expected to cost around $14 million to $18 million annually as part of the CalWORKS welfare program.

Legislative analysis estimates that 26,000 children would currently qualify.

The measure heads to Gov. Jerry Brown for a final verdict.

It’s not even 2016 yet, but the first debate over a probable initiative on the November 2016 ballot took place in Dana Point Monday when former Board of Equalization member Conway Collis squared off with Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association president Jon Coupal over the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act. The debate was hosted by the California Alliance of Taxpayer Advocates.

The measure, backed by charity organizations dedicated to reducing poverty, would raise property taxes on residential and commercial property valued at $3 million and more. The money would be deposited in anti-poverty programs outside the General Fund.

Collis argued that the initiative was a way for government to help relieve 2.4 million California children living below the poverty line. He said there was a moral and financial reason to do so. Leaving one-quarter of California’s children in poverty was an immoral position for the state. Lifting 50 percent of those suffering from poverty in 20 years — the goal of the initiative proponents — would reduce the dollars required for welfare programs and prisons while adding taxpayers to the rolls.

Coupal saw the measure as a direct attack on Proposition 13’s property tax protections. He asked: “Aren’t taxes high enough?” listing the state’s high tax rates in different tax categories. Coupal said voters were willing to support the Proposition 30 tax increases when the state budget was in crisis. There is no crisis now, he asserted, with the state sitting on a surplus of anywhere from $1 billion to $10 billion.

To Collis, a tax that touched only 1 percent of the taxpayers was worth the investment in attempting to save money in welfare programs while aiding those in poverty. He said business had a legitimate concern in annual reassessments on property (as proposed in a legislative bill to split the property tax roll) but that this plan “protects and builds” on the Proposition 13 framework and would preserve property tax predictability.

But Coupal said the economy and businesses would suffer, with more businesses packing to leave the state, especially because the great portion of the properties affected by the proposed tax increase would be commercial properties.

While Collis said the initiative has fail-safes to control programming that did not work to reduce poverty, Coupal countered that 30 programs are already in place to deal with poverty and that many suffer from fraud and abuse with recipients spending taxpayer-sponsored income in Hawaiian resorts and Las Vegas casinos.

Collis said his initiative would not simply help the poor but would boost all Californians. He said that the growing number of poor would “swallow the state budget” unless corrective measures are taken.

Collis insisted that polling and focus groups prove that voters understand that the tax was only on expensive property and would affect few taxpayers. He said signature gatherers were asking voters if they owned property over $3 million and if they answered “no” then they were told the measure would interest them. Collis said voters readily signed.

However, Coupal had a message for those voters should the initiative qualify for the ballot. The initiative breaks Proposition 13 by going after residential property. Once that door is opened other tax increase activists will want to charge through and all residential property owners would be at risk. That message will not be lost on voters, Coupal said. It is a concern that would be expressed in a political campaign.

The campaign messages are already being shaped and a long political campaign season has unofficially begun.

(Disclosure: I am associated with the committee that opposes the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act.)

The idea was that welfare would go back to being temporary to get families back on their feet, not a permanent lifestyle.

In recent years, including under the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, things have returned more to the Welfare State model. This is especially true in California, once one of America’s wealthiest states, but now the one with the highest level of poverty, at about a quarter of our people.

According to the Lucille Packard Foundation, 58 percent of California kids now are eligible to receive free or reduced-price school meals.

Now, California schools even are becoming centers for signing families up for Covered California, the state’s implementation of Obamacare. Reported EdSource:

In school libraries and courtyards from Sacramento to Los Angeles and beyond, trained enrollment counselors have been invited to set up folding tables, commandeer desk space and corral parents before the Feb. 15 sign-up deadline for Covered California, the state’s online health insurance marketplace created under the federal Affordable Care Act.

And the outreach will increase. Under a new state law, all California schools must include in their 2015-16 enrollment packets information about options for health care coverage and how to get help with the sign-up process. The law, Assembly Bill 2706, authored by Roger Hernández, D-West Covina, is intended to reduce the number of children who are eligible for health insurance subsidies but remain uninsured.

For perspective, here’s an excerpt from a 1987 interview with Moynihan, still relevant today:

There is a lot of vigorous research on welfare being done again, and it has really told us things we didn’t know. One of the most important things is that people who receive welfare cannot be regarded as one undifferentiated mass of people, and you can’t treat them all alike.

For instance, about a quarter of mothers who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children do so for less than one year. These are self-sustaining, capable people who have had a sudden divorce or separation. They’ll get their lives put back together and we won’t see them again.

At the other end of the spectrum – about a quarter of the people – are those who are unmarried and in real trouble and go on welfare very young. If you don’t get hold of those people very quickly and work very hard and put a lot of resources into them, you have a spoiled life. And their children have fairly chancy prospects.

When you know these things, the problem doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming. You don’t have to change the way people behave, because nobody knows how to change the way people behave. But you’ve got to make more equitable arrangements in areas like child support.

U.S. Census numbers

So if you’re a full-time worker in the private sector, such as yours truly, you’re supporting 1.7 people getting some sort of government check, whether government workers, welfare recipients, private contractors to governments, etc.

No wonder taxes are so high.

As CNSNews noted:

“As more baby boomers retire, and as Obamacare comes fully online — with its expanded Medicaid rolls and federally subsidized health insurance for anyone earning less than 400 percent of the poverty level — the number of takers will inevitably expand. And the number of full-time private-sector workers might also contract.

“Eventually, there will be too few carrying too many, and America will break.”

And let’s throw in a number I’ve noted before: the $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government, mainly for Social Security and Medicare, as calculated by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff.

Looks like we’re near the “tipping point,” to use a phrase popular today — or the point where the straw breaks the camel’s back, as people used to say.

Consider that number again: 1 private-sector worker supporting 1.7 people receiving a government check. It can’t possibly last.

By Katy Grimes

The Employment Development Department used to be called the “Unemployment Department.” And state welfare recipients are now “clients.”

The majority party in the California Legislature appears determined on expanding social services in the state despite evidence demonstrating that the programs don’t necessarily improve lives, as the very mixed record of the 50-year federal “War on Poverty” confirms. While discussing the need for “safety net” programs for the poorest in the state, legislators always cast a wider net than necessary.

The Assembly held a committee hearing Wednesday about expanding mandatory universal government preschool in California. By Thursday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee was focused on the CalWORKS program, and how to attract more “clients.” Expansion of the state’s Health and Human Services agency is an obvious goal.

CA has nation’s worst poverty rate

This push to expand government aid programs has as a backdrop California’s poverty rate of 23.5 percent — the highest in the nation and much higher than the national average of 16.1 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau said the high poverty rate was driven in part by California’s high cost of living, which is never a focus of the Legislature.

The stated goal of Thursday’s Senate hearing was to get  several questions answered, including “What does evidence indicate can help families avoid the negative consequences of poverty?”

The challenges of stress are made worse by poverty, according to Sarah Bohn of the Public Policy Institute of California and Ann Stevens, the director of UC Davis Center on Poverty Research.

Stevens said the well-known correlation between poverty in childhood and long-term effects mean poverty later in life, poor health and low educational achievement.

Subsidies for poor advocated, and more of them

“Constant stress is worse in poor people,” said Stevens. “Unobserved things in families in poverty lead to other bad outcomes.”

“Persistent poverty creates chronic stress for children,” Stevens added.

Stevens and Bohn advocated for subsidies for the poor, and for longer periods of time.

“A strong case can be made for reducing material deprivation,” Stevens said. “There’s growing credible evidence to support this.”

But both Stevens and Bohn also advocated for universal mandatory preschool. “There’s growing evidence to support intervention in early childhood and preschool,” Stevens said. She added this is crucial to break the cycle of poverty. “It’s not a trade-off,” said Stevens.

On welfare, mixed messages from Washington

Meanwhile, the federal government is sending out mixed messages. Under President Obama, one form of welfare has exponentially increased since he first took office in 2009. His administration, however, is also pressuring California to limit another type of welfare.

“When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) recipients was 31,939,110. By October 2012, the latest month reported, they had jumped to 47,525,329,” CNS News reported. “That means the food stamp program grew by approximately 11,133 recipients per day from January 2009 to October 2012.” SNAP used to be known as the Food Stamp program.

CNS News also reported, “[F]ederal spending on SNAP has increased every fiscal year that Obama has been in office. In FY 2009 — when SNAP was still known as the ‘Food Stamp’ program — the government spent $55.6 billion. According to an April 2012 report from the Congressional Budget Office, SNAP enrollment increased by 70 percent between 2007 and 2011.”

In California, spending on such programs is going up. But the Brown administration is also trying to implement some of the welfare reforms seen in other states — because of federal pressure.

“The Governor’s budget proposes $20.3 billion from the General Fund for health programs—a 3.4 percent increase over 2012-13 estimated expenditures—and $8 billion from the General Fund for human services programs—a 7.9 percent increase over 2012-13 estimated expenditures,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote in its 2013-14 “Analysis of the Health and Human Services Budget.”

Recent changes to the CalWORKs program include a phase-out of exemptions from welfare-to-work requirements, and the introduction of a new 24-month limit on adult eligibility in the program.

Existing law requires each California county to provide cash assistance and other social services to needy families through the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program. CalWORKs uses funds from the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant program, as well as state and county funds.

Reforms prompted by federal pressure

As a condition of the federal grant, the federal government requires states to meet work requirements. But California has been in violation of this rule, and was notified the state will be assessed penalties of $160 million by the federal government. This is just for 2008 and 2009. There is no word yet if California will be penalized for 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The state claims to have a plan to remedy this, but not by requiring CalWORKS recipients to get to work.

“Planned state actions are projected to increase the state’s work participation rate by (1) increasing the number of countable cases that meet the federal work requirement through the work Incentive Nutritional Suppliment program, and (2) removing from the work participation requirement calculation certain CalWORKS cases that do not meet the federal work requirement,” the LAO reported.

The LAO estimates that California “may be compliant with the requirement by 2015.”

CalWORKS recipients are required to work 20, 30, or 35 hours per week, depending on family composition. California allows CalWORKS recipients to substitute mental health and substance abuse programs for work.

CalWORKS reductions may be reversed

California has made $700 million in reductions to the CalWORKS program since 2009. But now, the Legislature is actively pushing to expand the program.

SB 1041, passed in 2012, authorized the changes to the CalWORKS program, but only through 2012.

By Katy Grimes

The U.S. economy lost more than 1.4 million jobs between December and January. But it’s almost impossible to find any reports in the mainstream media about this.

Instead, the media primarily have reported on reduced federal spending, as if that is enough of a balancing act. But the government has no choice but to make cuts as the United States now runs deficits of more than $1 trillion. It cannot continue.

Much of the media have been ignoring the truth about the economy, cherry-picking some factoids and telling outright falsehoods.

Shrinking labor force

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the U.S. labor force “that is employed” has continually fallen since 2006.

But it gets worse.

The number of Americans “not in the labor force” more than tripled during Barack Obama’s first term in office. This number is particularly interesting because it is larger than the increase in the number of Americans “not in the labor force” during the entire decade of 1980-1990.

The mainstream media have been giddy reporting 157,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January. But it’s the “non-seasonally adjusted” numbers — the number of Americans with a job — which actually decreased by 1,446,000 between December and January, according to Michael Snyder, an economist, attorney and author of the Economic Collapse blog. These numbers are even more important.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the labor participation number has been in a free fall since 2006:

2006: 63.1 percent employed

2007: 63.0

2008: 62.2

2009: 59.3

2010: 58.5

2011: 58.4

In January, only 57.9 percent of the civilian labor force was employed.

What does this mean?

“A 1954 Studebaker Lark has more momentum than this economy!” said CNBC’s financial expert, Rick Santelli. He noted in December that the labor force participation rate has dropped significantly since Obama was elected. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this means the number of Americans age 16 or older who decided not to work or even to seek a job increased by 8,332,000 to a record 88,839,000 in President Barack Obama’s first term.

“The people who run the country — on both sides of the aisle — they love to get elected and they also love to fib about the statistics in any way they can,” Santelli said. “Once again, I think my common phrase these days is: Shame on all of them.”

“Before Obama took office, the labor force participation rate had not been as low as 63.6 percent since 1981, the year President Ronald Reagan took over from President Jimmy Carter,” a time of deep recession, CNS News reported. Santelli noted in January the total debt that our children are currently charged with is $3.5 million per baby born today. Santelli is right. Instead of just listening to the media hype and spin, look at the numbers.

According to the BLS, in 2007 more than 146 million Americans were employed.  Today, that number has dropped to 141.6 million, even though our population has grown by about 15 million.

What recovery?

State, local and federal governments, together with the help of the media, report that we are in a “recovery.” They insist unemployment is lower than it was a couple of years ago.

But the truth is the continuing drop in the labor force. And during Obama’s first term the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day. These statistics go hand in hand.

“When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) recipients was 31,939,110. By October 2012, the latest month reported, they had jumped to 47,525,329,” CNS News reported. “That means the food stamp program grew by approximately 11,133 recipients per day from January 2009 to October 2012.” SNAP is formerly known as the Food Stamp program.

CNS News also reported, “[F]ederal spending on SNAP has increased every fiscal year that Obama has been in office. In FY 2009—when SNAP was still known as the ‘Food Stamp’ program—the government spent $55.6 billion. According to an April 2012 report from the Congressional Budget Office, SNAP enrollment increased by 70 percent between 2007 and 2011.”

The Obama administration, California Gov. Jerry Brown and the media have been misleading about unemployment, welfare expansion, government entitlements and the true condition of our economy. But they appear to be closely protected by much of the media.

California’s poverty rate of 23.5 percent is the highest in the nation — much higher than the national average of 16.1 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Killing off small business

Millions of small businesses are on the verge of extinction. Yet local, state and federal bureaucrats and politicians just continue to heap more taxes and fees on them, more rules and more regulations. Just since November when President Barack Obama was re-elected, the federal government has issued hundreds of new regulations.

“Get your boot off of my neck!” says one small business owner I know every time she is forced to pay another tax increase of additional license cost or fee.

A recent Gallup poll found 61 percent of all small business owners in America are worried about the potential cost of healthcare because of Obamacare. A shocking 30 percent of all small business owners in America say they are not only not hiring, but they fear that they will go out of business within the next 12 months.

“More U.S. small-business owners say they let more employees go than they hired on average over the past 12 months, for a net hiring index of -10 in January, according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index,” Gallup Economy reported on Jan. 31.

Texas Governor Rick Perry recently called for returning “excess tax money” to taxpayers in his state, while California small businesses lost jobs as their taxes rose.

Yet according to the National Federation of Small Business California, small businesses account for more than 97 percent of all jobs in California.

What better way to destroy the economy than to kill off small businesses?

Spin and hype

Even bad economic news is hyped by the media as though it is good news.

In response to the news that the economy “contracted” by -0.1 percent in the final quarter of last year, Democrats touted the claim of Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics, that it’s “the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see. The drag from defense spending and inventories is a one-off. The rest of the report is all encouraging.”

Breitbart’s John Nolte summed up the spin:

* “Politico saw the jobs numbers as something that ‘could soothe some of the renewed economic anxiety in Washington.’

* “The AP saw the jobs numbers as proof the ‘U.S. job market is proving sturdier than expected” and “mostly encouraging.’

* “CBS News wants to assure all of us that the ‘[l]atest job numbers signal economic recovery.’

* “Yahoo News says, “Don’t Be Fooled by the GDP Report: The Economy Is Gaining Strength.'”

List of bad news

Nolte made a list of the bad news far too many Americans face:

* “What you’re seeing from the media is shamelessly dishonest propaganda.

* “Poverty is increasing.

* “Gas prices have almost doubled.

* “The price of health care premiums has exploded and will only explode more (but-but-but Obama said…!)

* “Poor and middle-class incomes are falling.

* “One-in-five Americans are on food stamps.

* “The non-partisan GAO says Obama’s exploding deficit is unsustainable.

* “Eight million people are looking for work.

* “Our labor force has shrunk to 30-year levels (170,000 more dropped out last month).

* “Chronic unemployment hasn’t been this bad since before World War II.

* “The long-term unemployment rate is more than 14 percent. And if the labor force was merely the same size today as it was the day Obama took office, today’s unemployment rate would be closer to 11 percent.”

When’s the last time the media talked about any of that?

By Katy Grimes

The state of California is pushing welfare and food stamps very hard. They constantly advertise on the radio and television, and must have a huge public relations budget… paid for courtesy of taxpayers.

Here’s one ad for the “Women, infants and children” program:

Welcome to the WIC Show!
The show about WIC, for WIC and by WIC!

On our channel you’ll find five half-hour episodes made up of different segments that will interest everyone, especially parents of young children and pregnant women. 

The shows are designed to reinforce California’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) education programs, highlight WIC service while at the same time entertain WIC clients.

Once you are in these programs, you get hooked into other programs: county health care, housing, school, daycare. Eventually, the government runs everything in the lives of those on government assistance. It’s no wonder President barack Obama got reelected.

CalFresh

The WIC ad says, “the food program is not a welfare program,” but you have a state case worker.

We can’t even call welfare what it is.

Food-stamp benefits usage is at an all time high. 46 million Americans are on welfare and use food stamps. One-third of all welfare recipients are in California.

The name of the California welfare food stamp program was changed to “CalFresh,” to take the stigma out of using welfare benefits. Recipients are given a debit card so they look like every other shopper when purchasing their items.

In Los Angeles County, more than one million people are signed up for the food stamp and welfare benefits, ranging from $200 to $1,500 a month.

In 2011, the federal Department of Food and Agriculture went all out on a national media awareness program. Here is a schedule of media buys in just L.A. County.

This was done because in some areas, welfare agencies believed that communities were “under served.” In Sacramento County, the Board of Supervisors even got involved, allowing the Sacramento Hunger Coalition to drive a campaign to expand the number of recipients.

“The Sacramento Hunger Coalition was founded in 1989 and now resides as a project of the Sacramento Housing Alliance’s Coalition on Regional Equity (CORE)’s food justice work,” the website says.

What a clever way to expand government. But welfare has become a giant ponzi scheme.

Even more interesting, is the list of publications below from the Sacramento Hunger Coalition… the links go nowhere. But this was what the entire hunger in Sacramento campaign was based on.

Hunger Hits Home 2012: Understanding & Combating Hunger in Sacramento County

A Primer on the Restaurant Meals Program in California: Preventing Hunger Among the Elderly, Disabled & Homeless in the Golden State

Homeless Nutrition Education Toolkit: A Resource for Nutrition Educators and Emergency Food Providers

Hunger and Homelessness in Sacramento: 2010 Hunger & Food Insecurity Report

I finally found one of the reports on hunger in Sacramento – I hope no one got paid to produce this.

Other government advertising

I hear government paid radio ads for bullying, FEMA, flood insurance,  Homeland security disaster preparedness,  the CA Earthquake Authority insurance, and ads about housing discrimination, paid for by the federal Housing and Urban Development department.

What a scam, all paid for by taxpayers.

By Katy Grimes

It appears that Democrats aren’t really sincere or even serious about working toward solutions that will actually help California solve the economic crisis in the state. Last week, Democrats voted against a smart consolidation program which would have provided an additional $1.3 billion to the state.

After Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that California’s budget deficit has grown to nearly $16 billion, astoundingly higher than the $9 billion deficit amount announced in January, one would assume that every California politician would be looking under every rock for money to shore-up the debt.

Apparently politics trumps economic stability.

Welfare system maze

One way to cut government is consolidating redundant services. If politicians are looking for redundancy in state government, the biggest mess  is also the most obvious: California currently has four different systems which run Medi-Cal, CalWORKS, and Food Stamp programs. Every county has its own maze of welfare programs as well.

Last week during the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Health and Human Services hearing, Democrats moved to repeal the 2009 law directing the state to move towards a single, centralized system for Medi-Cal, CalWORKS, and Food Stamp programs.

In a 2010 report, the Legislative Analyst’s Office found “the new statewide process is intended to achieve two primary outcomes: (1) providing better service to people applying for these programs and (2) lowering administrative costs through better use of technology.”

Even with the LAO’s recommendation to consolidate, for efficiency, simplification, better record keeping, and cost savings, Democrats opposed consolidating the four state programs into one system – even with the $1.3 billion incentive from the Federal Government to do this.

With this opposition, Democrats have jeopardized much needed federal funds. This decision highlights the purely political problems involved in balancing our budget – government jobs and government spending, over efficiency and a slimmer state government.

In 2011 California applied for $1.3 billion in federal funding to streamline the four systems in the state’s largest welfare programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded in April that they were approving the funding request on the condition that California consolidate the welfare system.

But Democrats said “no.”

Tonight — Feb. 24 — at 11 pm California time I’ll be on NBC News in San Diego, Channel 7. Their great new anchor, Christine Haas, interview me about food stamp abuse by Californians.

But if you don’t live in America’s Finest City, you need not worry. Christine is going to send me a link to the video and I’ll put it up on CalWatchDog.com as soon as it’s ready.

Feb. 24, 2012