Welfare reform during the Clinton Administration weakened the social safety net, making it more likely economically stressed families would fall into poverty. Cheers to Peter Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich for their Washington Post editorial  on this crisis.

The current recession is proving just how distressed the system is, the writers said. More families are relying on unemployment insurance and food stamps to ride out the economic storm because TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), the new name for welfare, is no longer as available.

The authors wrote:

“Why the huge difference between unemployment insurance and food stamp usage and welfare caseloads? People have a legal right to food stamps if they meet the statutory requirements, but since 1996 there has been no legal right to cash assistance. And so welfare, generally speaking, has not cushioned the impact of the recession.”

For more information on the National Association of Social Workers’ position on this welfare and other issues read “Promoting Economic Security Through Social Welfare Legislation,” policy briefs prepared by NASW’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Economic Security. And to find out what legislation NASW is currently pushing visit its Advocacy Web page.

TheStar.com – News/Ontario – Millions wasted in welfare programs: Failure to clamp down on overpayments, fraud undermines the war on poverty, auditor says
Published On Tue Dec 08 2009.  Rob Ferguson, Tanya Talaga Queen's Park Bureau

The Ontario government's war against poverty would help more people if officials clamped down on $1.2 billion in waste, overpayments and fraud in welfare and disability support programs, Auditor General Jim McCarter says.

His annual report, released Monday, found that despite public outrage over recent expense scandals at eHealth and Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., there is still room for improvement in how the province spends taxpayers' money.

He urged government staffers to “spend the taxpayers' money like it is their own.”

In one example, a family on disability support was paid $100,000 more than it was entitled to after the community and social services ministry “ignored” five complaints over several years from tipsters.

That money is part of $663 million in overpayments, up about 42 per cent since the last audit in 2004, with the prospect of more because 37,000 of the 250,000 people getting money under the $3 billion annual program are up to seven years overdue for medical reassessments to determine if they remain eligible.

Another $600 million, an increase of 45 per cent since 2002, has been spent on welfare overpayments because of a poor record of checking eligibility – in some cases with no proof of identity or legal status in Canada – compounded by only “minimal efforts” to get the money returned, McCarter found.

There is little hope of that, he said.

“Given the clientele, once you've paid the money out it's very difficult to get it back,” the veteran auditor told a news conference after releasing his 500-page report.

Front-line welfare workers for the province and municipalities must closely monitor applicants and verify their incomes and circumstances with independent third parties to make sure they are eligible for financial aid, he said.

“If we tighten down and make sure that only people entitled to get money actually get the money, it does give the government some flexibility to when they are looking to make sure they can look after the people who really need the money,” McCarter said.

The government “has a lot to do,” said Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur, noting there is now a financial “recovery unit” and officials have referred 2,300 questionable welfare and disability support cases to the Ontario Provincial Police for investigation.

Anti-poverty activist John Stapleton, a member of the government's new welfare review committee, said many “overpayments” are actually adjustments made after someone on welfare gets a job or income from another government program. It doesn't necessarily mean “someone has scammed the system or cheated it,” he added.

The Liberals have launched an anti-poverty effort, saying one in eight Ontario children live in families that can't afford fresh fruit and vegetables, to replace a broken appliance or to share the occasional meal with friends or family. The government's response has included the acceleration of the Ontario Child Benefit to $1,100 per child annually, commitment to full-day learning for 4- and 5-year-olds next fall, and promised tax relief.

McCarter took issue with the special dietary allowances of up to $250 a month given to people on welfare with health problems, noting the cost to taxpayers has risen to $67 million a year from $5 million six years ago. The allowance is given to people with a doctor's note.

His audit found many “questionable” claims, such as a large family where everyone had been diagnosed with the same medical conditions.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/735580–millions-wasted-in-w… >

Is 99 weeks of unemployment checks enough? Or should it be extended? If extended, where will the money come from?

How can they extend the benefits when they have no money? Eventually these people getting unemployment are going to have to get off their ass and take a job that they may think is “beneath them”.Getting unemployment for 99 weeks is MORE than enough time to find a job, even if it's a crappy job at Walmart. Enough is enough.

(12-08) 16:28 PST — Nearly 600,000 jobless Californians could run out of unemployment benefits by April unless Congress extends a series of special assistance measures that expire at the end of December, says the National Employment Law Project.

The 65 percent federal subsidy for Cobra benefits will also expire at year's end, said the Law Project and allied groups at a press conference Monday in Washington.

Law Project chief Christine Owens said that nearly half of those now enrolled in the health insurance program could lose coverage unless the Cobra subsidy is reauthorized and extended.

Unemployment benefits normally last a maximum of 26 weeks and laid-off workers typically pay for continuing their old employment-based health insurance under Cobra.

But under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the Obama stimulus plan, Congress allocated $40 billion to make unemployment benefits available for up to 79 weeks, and another $25 billion to subsidize Cobra.

Lawmakers recently added up to 20 weeks of unemployment checks, for a total of 99 weeks of benefits in California.

But those provisions expire at the end of December, and the groups holding Monday's press conference said that by the end of March, about 3 million Americans are projected to exhaust their benefits as the unemployment coverage maximum reverts to 26 weeks.

Making 99 weeks of unemployment benefits available throughout 2010 would cost about $85 billion, and extending the Cobra subsidy could be another $25 billion decision, said a Capitol Hill source.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to extend both programs before the end of the year. New bills H.R. 4183 and S. 2381 would address jobless benefits.

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Bakk made his comments on November 5th. Since then, President Obama signed a bill into law that extends unemployment benefits an additional 14 weeks. So, even people who had used up all 79 weeks of benefits and extensions may now qualify for those additional 14 weeks.

Roughly 10,000 people will have their benefits immediately extended.

Comments (3)

I don't get this “fact check.” Bakk was basically right on the numbers he used. The GOP had been holding this extension hostage in the Senate since May. Is this “fact check” supposed to prove that he can't predict the future? Didn't know prognostication was a necessary trait to be governor these days.

Posted by
BulldogJunior |
November 13, 2009 6:04 PM

Fact-checks don't always have to say a public official is wrong, brother. We're just taking statements candidates make and checking them out to see if they're right or not.

Posted by
tom scheck |
November 13, 2009 8:55 PM

Tom,
Great reporting. I wish there was more follow-up on what candidates say … especially if they repeat things after they are no longer valid. Case in point, when Palenty/Kline/Paulsen continue to reference The Lewin Group study involving healthcare legislation and never ackowledging that even the report authors have stated that the current proposal is not what there estimate was based on.

That leads to the question : Was Bakk repeating this claim after the President signed the legislation and checks had been received ? If he did, they he should be promptly admonished … if he did not, then that is not a concern.

Second question : Is anyone attacking Bakk's claims ? You have more knowledge of inside politics and what manipulation of the facts may be going on.

Lastly, have you thought about how to put the accuracy of the claim in perspective ? Some have used a meter to distinguish true from fiction … in this case the dial may be slanted toward the truth end.

Posted by
MinnesotaCentral |
November 14, 2009 9:36 AM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/attack-of-the-killer-tomatoes-1834638.html

Vegetarians, look away now.

Potatoes and tomatoes make good eating but they may also have a vicious side that makes them deadly killers on a par with venus fly traps and pitcher plants.

They have been identified as among a host of plants thought to have been overlooked by botanists and explorers searching the world’s remotest regions for carnivorous species.

Researchers at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew now believe there are hundreds more plants that catch and eat insects and other small animals than they previously realised. Among them are species of petunia, ornamental tobacco plants, potatoes and tomatoes and shepherd’s purse, a relative of cabbages.

“Widely recognised carnivorous plants number some 650 and we estimate that another 325 or so are probable additions – so an increase of about 50 per cent,” said Dr Mike Fay, of Kew.

Researchers realised the plant world was more bloodthirsty than had been realised when they carried out an assessment of carnivorous plants to celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

Darwin himself had been fascinated by carnivorous plants and conducted many experiments in which he fed them meat, and in 1875 his book on them, Insectivorous Plants, was published.

Dr Fay said it is likely that the meat-eating qualities of many plants has gone unrecognised because they are missing some of the prime characteristics associated with carnivorous species.

Pitcher plants and venus fly traps have specialist structures to kill and devour their prey but other plants are more subtle and rely on supplementing their usual diet by passive means.

Among them are plants such as ornamental tobaccos, and some species of potatoes and tomatoes which have sticky hairs which trap aphids and other small invertebrates. It is thought that rather than devour the prey directly the dead bodies decay slowly and the nutrients fall to the ground where they are taken up by the roots.

“They catch little aphids on the sticky hairs all the time. As these insects break down and drop to the ground the ground becomes enriched and the plants absorb them through the roots,” he said.

Such an ability is comparable to that of Roridula in Southern Africa which has sticky leaves on which flies get stuck but has no means of digesting them. It relies on a bug which devours the flies and the plant is then able to extract nutrients from the faeces which drop to the ground.

Domestic varieties of tomatoes and potatoes retain the ability to trap and kill small insects with their sticky hairs and are likely to absorb the nutrients through their roots when the animals decay and fall to the ground.

They are, however, thought to derive little benefit because they are so well-supplied with fertilisers whereas in the wild it might be an important source of food.

Professor Mark Chase, of Kew and Queen Mary, University of London, said: “The cultivated tomatoes and potatoes still have the hairs. Tomatoes in particular are covered with these sticky hairs. They do trap small insects on a regular basis. They do kill insects.

“We suspect in the domesticated varieties they are getting plenty of food through the roots from us so don’t get much benefit from trapping insects. In the wild they could be functioning in the way that could properly be considered carnivorous.”

Shepherd’s purse is thought to be carnivorous, at least in part, because its seeds are covered in a thin layer of a substance that both attracts tiny organisms in the soil and kills them. Furthermore, the seeds secrete an enzyme which can break down the bodies so the nutrients can be taken up during germination.

Dr Fay said the study’s findings backed up the idea that all flowering plants began with the capacity to eat meat when they evolved but that only some of them made use of and retained the ability.

The researchers, publishing their finding in The Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, added: “We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think.

“We are accustomed to think of plants as being immobile and harmless, and there is something deeply unnerving about the thought of carnivorous plants.

“Overall, angiosperms [flowering plants] of many types may be involved in a degree of carnivory and be ‘proto-carnivorous’; perhaps we should be more curious about why more plant species have not developed a ‘taste’ for animal-derived nutrients.”

Blood-curdling tales of meat-eating plants have fascinated people in Britain ever since the first live venus flytrap to reach London caused a sensation across Europe in the 18th century.

Stories of man-eating specimens have held a particular attraction since featuring in such stories as The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) – more recently in the Harry Potter books, whose Venomous Tentacula tries to seize living prey with its grasping vines.

One 19th-century tale of a tree in Madagascar with tentacles that would grab hold of people and drag them to their doom even purported to be based on eyewitness accounts and was only discounted in the 20th century. Another reported a man-eating tree in Central America which would crush bodies with its tentacles “until every drop of blood is squeezed out of it and becomes absorbed by the gore-loving plant”.

The potato can only dream…