Obama Admin on Welfare: “Who’s to Say What is Enough?”
Kiki Bradley /
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and its role in providing assistance to struggling families.
The Obama Administration’s witness, Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, Carmen Nazario, included in her testimony a request to extend for a year the TANF Emergency Fund at a cost of $2.5 billion. This would extend a $5 billion program created in the Stimulus package last year that severely undermines the success of welfare reform. It essentially pays states for every new TANF case added to the caseload creating a perverse incentive to grow the size of the welfare state. (more…)