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The Single Worst Idea From 1990s Welfare Reform Is Finally Dying
The Single Worst Idea From 1990s Welfare Reform Is Finally Dying
7/7/15
Nineteen years after President Bill Clinton endorsed conservative ideas about fighting poverty and signed sweeping welfare reform into law, one of the most poorly thought out elements of that political pact is on the verge of crumbling.
Committing a drug crime was supposed to permanently ban a person from food stamps and welfare benefits under a little-discussed provision of the Clinton-Gingrich reforms. But with Alabama and Texas creating exceptions to those bans as part of broader criminal justice reforms this legislative season, barely 10 percent of the states will actually maintain such a lifetime ban for drug crimes come autumn.
The War on Drugs and the War on Poverty aren’t easily mixed. Making it harder to eat and pay rent won’t help someone busted for pot possession or small-time cocaine sales to recover economically and socially from years in prison. The bans ensure that every discriminatory effect of the drug war gets amplified economically even after the criminal justice system is done with a person. Because women are the primary recipients of both assistance programs, and women of color are more likely to get caught up in the racial disparities of the criminal justice system, the bans have ended up disproportionately affecting women of color and their children — and doing next to nothing to combat either drugs or poverty.
The bans were masterminded by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who designed the legislation to kick in automatically nationwide unless state legislatures actively opted out. Many did immediately, but for well over a decade the majority of the country’s public assistance jurisdictions maintained Gramm’s bans in full....
....Imperfect though the new Texas policy may be, it still shrinks the number of states with full-fledged lifetime SNAP bans for drug felonies to six. Together with similar-in-spirit compromises in Missouri and Alabama, the law means there are 33 percent fewer states that maintain the SNAP ban than there were just two years ago.....
Read full story here~
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/07/3677408/drug-felony-lifetime-ban-food-stamps/
7/7/15
Nineteen years after President Bill Clinton endorsed conservative ideas about fighting poverty and signed sweeping welfare reform into law, one of the most poorly thought out elements of that political pact is on the verge of crumbling.
Committing a drug crime was supposed to permanently ban a person from food stamps and welfare benefits under a little-discussed provision of the Clinton-Gingrich reforms. But with Alabama and Texas creating exceptions to those bans as part of broader criminal justice reforms this legislative season, barely 10 percent of the states will actually maintain such a lifetime ban for drug crimes come autumn.
The War on Drugs and the War on Poverty aren’t easily mixed. Making it harder to eat and pay rent won’t help someone busted for pot possession or small-time cocaine sales to recover economically and socially from years in prison. The bans ensure that every discriminatory effect of the drug war gets amplified economically even after the criminal justice system is done with a person. Because women are the primary recipients of both assistance programs, and women of color are more likely to get caught up in the racial disparities of the criminal justice system, the bans have ended up disproportionately affecting women of color and their children — and doing next to nothing to combat either drugs or poverty.
The bans were masterminded by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who designed the legislation to kick in automatically nationwide unless state legislatures actively opted out. Many did immediately, but for well over a decade the majority of the country’s public assistance jurisdictions maintained Gramm’s bans in full....
....Imperfect though the new Texas policy may be, it still shrinks the number of states with full-fledged lifetime SNAP bans for drug felonies to six. Together with similar-in-spirit compromises in Missouri and Alabama, the law means there are 33 percent fewer states that maintain the SNAP ban than there were just two years ago.....
Read full story here~
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/07/3677408/drug-felony-lifetime-ban-food-stamps/
There was a lot of damage done during that era. At least this irrational, extremely harmful rule is only sparsely used throughout the country now.
