Boy, this is mean spirited. I hope BushInc goes down in flames soon.
It should have been yesterday. Actually, BushInc should never have
happened. This is one mean, crazy world.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4100719.htmlStates scrambling to comply with new welfare rules
Second phase of reforms pushes poor to work more with less time for personal growth
By AMY GOLDSTEIN
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Having grown up on welfare, Rochelle Riordan had vowed never to ask for a government handout. That was before her hard-drinking husband kicked her and their young daughter out of their house near Lewiston, Maine, leaving her with a $300 bank account, a bad job market and a 15-year-old car patched with duct tape.
Maine's welfare agency, she heard, was offering help for poor parents to go to college full time.
With the state paying for day care and $513 a month in living expenses, Riordan, 37, has been on the dean's list every semester at the University of Southern Maine, expecting to graduate and start a social work career next spring. But this summer, her plans — and Maine's Parents as Scholars program — suddenly are on shaky ground; under new federal rules, studying for a bachelor's degree no longer counts as an acceptable way for people on welfare to spend their time.
A decade after the government set out to transform the nation's welfare system, the limits on college are part of a controversial second phase of welfare reform. The new rules, written by Congress and the Bush administration, require states to focus intensely on making more poor people work, while discouraging other activities that might help untangle their lives.