The NY Governor was very close to signing the worst piece of pro-welfare boondoggle legislation in a decade.
Luckily for the NY State Taxpayers, he never put pen to paper.
Chiding lawmakers for ignoring “the realities of the marketplace,” Governor Spitzer stunned fellow Democrats yesterday by vetoing a bill that would have reordered the priorities of welfare offices by forcing caseworkers to steer female welfare recipients to higher-wage jobs in male-dominated fields.
With a stroke of his veto pen, Mr. Spitzer swung attention, at least briefly, toward a substantive policy disagreement in a capital consumed recently by personal recrimination and scandal.
The debate pits critics against the champions of a mid-1990s overhaul of welfare laws that many believe led to the sharp drop in welfare rolls in New York and across the nation.
Advocates of the overhaul say much of its success is due to the increased emphasis on getting welfare recipients back to work and on the road to self-sufficiency as soon as possible. Opponents charge that, while employment has increased, the single mothers who make up the bulk of the caseload are too often directed to low-paying clerical or service jobs that leave them mired in poverty. The legislation, they say, is an attempt to help women aim for higher-wage jobs that require more skills and typically employ more men.
It is absolutely not an “attempt to help aim”. It never was. The bill was purely a trial piece of legislation that would have relaxed standards while calling for more federal money and keeping more people on the welfare longer to again create dependancy on the government.
The legislation would have mandated that state welfare offices encourage recipients to seek training for “sustainable wage jobs” and promote employment in “nontraditional” fields. The bill defines “sustainable” as 185% of the poverty level, or $37,000 for a family of four. “Nontraditional” is defined as an industry in which one gender makes up more than 75% of the work force. The bill’s official memo highlights as “nontraditional” jobs for women such occupations as furniture movers, taxi drivers, carpenters, chemists, firefighters, and aerospace engineers.
“Here, take this money to go to school you won’t be able to finish before the federal money runs out, so that you fail to qualify for a job you wouldn’t be able to keep because you have no job retention skills, all of which will cause you to come back to us for more money just so you can eat.”
That is what this bill was. And if they passed it in NY State, you would have seen this socialist piece of crap land in your homestate in short order.