If you turn off the water, does that end one’s thirst?
Of course, not.
But that’s the logic Gov. Sam Brownback is using to justify cutting welfare benefits — again.
“The results have been very positive,” Brownback said of his now third time to cut government assistance programs, including food stamps.
Fewer people are receiving assistance, he boasts, as if that illustrates the greater need is being met.
On average, those being affected make $11,880 a year, or about half of the federal poverty level. With the last two cuts, more than 1,000 families will lose aid.
Legislators began sharpening the ax in 2011 when they restricted temporary benefits from five years to four. In 2015, it went from four years to three. And now, three years to two.
We are not a state of second chances.
Brownback patronizes the poor when he says by reducing public assistance he is only trying to help them overcome a “tendency to procrastinate.” Without the assistance, they’ll get back to work.
“That’s our objective: it’s to get people out of poverty,” he said.
Why can’t he just be honest?
The truth is that in his and Republican legislators’ drive to maintain tax cuts for the wealthy, he’s running roughshod over everyone else — especially our most vulnerable, our children. During Brownback’s tenure as governor, the number of children receiving assistance through the state-sponsored Temporary Aid for Needy Families program has dropped from 25,000 in 2007 to 10,000 in 2015. During that same period, the rate of childhood poverty in Kansas has increased by 20 percent, according to Kansas Action for Children.
Just in the last five months, more than 1,000 Kansas children have been dropped from TANF rolls.
And it’s not because their needs have been met.
Almost 90 percent of those kicked off the rolls have not found secure employment, according to the KAC.
