Arizona to eliminate public assistance for poor families

by Leigh Graham · 2009-04-10 11:00:00 UTC
Topics:

Arizona, like so many states, has crippling budget deficits right now.  Legislators' solution to closing a $3 Billion gap?  Slashing a mere $100 Million in aid for poor families, which will trigger an additional $400 Million loss. If legislators do this, they will become the first state in the nation to lose federal funds for public assistance to needy households.

Honestly, this is just cruel.

First, all states but California spent less than 5% of their overall budgets on public assistance, and almost 2/3 spend less than 1% annually.  Arizona is one of those states.  Second, the Obama Administration has released an additional $5 Billion in cash aid for states to support poor families.  In Arizona, this money goes to help

"low-income families with rent payments, utilities, job training and other services. The money is distributed directly by the DES and through local agencies, which use it to provide shelter to the homeless and aid domestic-violence victims."

Third, AZ is only required to pony up $127 Million to receive federal funds - by law, that's the same amount they spent in 1994.

But they can't even be bothered to come up with $$ that amounts to only 4% of the overall deficit - a measly sum that would actually trigger an additional four times that amount in assistance for the neediest households in the state.

Keep in mind, when you hear infuriating rhetoric like this from the state's (GOP) leaders:

"What we've turned into is folks continuing to think that everyone has the right to live off the backs of those who work for a living," said Pearce, R-Mesa, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "Most taxpayers have had enough."

that these funds would help over 30,000 families with child care and supplementary cash payments, 9,000 victims of domestic violence and 10,000 homeless people.  AZ's population is 6.5 Million.  Are you one of those taxpayers who objects to helping the worst off who make up less than 1/10 of 1% of the population?  Really?

I hope this is not a sign of things to come.  We have the potential here to be adopting all the wrong models of fiscal "responsibility."

(Photo of Tucson, AZ mission charity collection by szlea)

Leigh Graham
PREVIOUS STORY:
Bird Feathers and Silenced Rigs…
NEXT STORY:
Sallie Mae Blinks!

COMMENTS (4)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.