Nova_Native Wrote:
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> I believe she (Gordon) is making a small dig at
> Republicans and specifically Tea Bagger rhetoric.
> ...
> Nevertheless, these concepts from the root of
> Bagger ideology, except, as Gordon points out,
> when they are not convenient to do so. That's the
> joke.
Um, yeah, I got that. Except that it doesn't at all apply in this case which was the point of my response. I have some interest in and knowledge of this matter in particular beyond standard forum banter which is why I responded. Not at all an applicable example per Gordon's comment. (And in anticipation of the obvious, no I'm not on welfare. lol)
>
> So, help an old man out. Indicate the exact
> sentences and passages where you
> positions are illuminated and corroborated. For
> example, "having HHS driving the program and
> continuing to dictate the changes isn't
> particularly responsive to Gordon's point re
> state's rights." I don't know. Did you except
> laughter or something.
No problem. I'm an old guy too so glad to help out another codger. ;)
If you'd read it then what I said would be clear. There is nothing which in any way delegates authority or hands off responsibility or primacy to the states. The entire approach has HHS as the responsible entity for the TANF program and its expansion via its authority under the law as cited. It's simply a planned expansion to one aspect of the program as it stands (i.e., demo programs). But if you want a specific example that demonstrates this, then the following is illustrative of the point:
"In providing for these demonstrations, HHS will hold states accountable by requiring both a federally-approved evaluation and interim performance targets that ensure an immediate focus on measurable outcomes. States must develop evaluation plans that are sufficient to evaluate the effect of the proposed approach in furthering a TANF purpose as well as interim targets the state commits to achieve. States that fail to meet interim outcome targets will be required to develop an improvement plan and can face termination of the waiver project."
> But isn't that what you want, restriction? Or are
> you saying that the language in the law was
> crafted to make it extremely hard to change it's
> original purpose? Evidently not as hard as you
> thought.
The latter. If you're 50-ish, then you should recall the nature of the debate and intent of the changes made to the programs during the Clinton administration ("Workfare" ring any bells?). And, no, it's not hard to simply ignore or interpret some aspect of a law that is inconvenient for a given administration's objectives in the way that they'd like. Happens all the time on both sides and such things routinely end up in the courts for resolution.
>
> Are you suggesting that 402 was an unused
> part that the Secretary of HHS just happen to
> notice one day, or that it was secretly injected
> into the guys of the bill, like a virus.
No, as above, administrations actively look for ways to accomplish what they view as their mission and to justify/expand/contract/not enforce various aspects of law that fit/don't fit with their objectives. They employ attorneys and legislative analysts specifically to do just that. If you're not aware of this, then you may want to take a more active interest in how your government actually works. But that should be apparent simply from various issues along such lines which regularly appear in the news.
Beyond the applicability of this per Gordon's comment, since you seem to have some general interest, here's how this one shakes out in a nutshell:
The administration has a general objective of ensuring/expanding the social safety net/increasing funding to the poor/redistributing money, however you'd like to characterize it depending on where you fall in the political spectrum, in the same way that's it has pushed for the expansion of the 'food stamp' and similar programs, etc.
In particular with respect to the TANF program, given the downturn and resulting higher unemployment it's become harder for states to meet work participation requirements. There have been a number of legislative changes made to try to help along those lines (some of which were bi-partisan and pre-date the current administration). Too much to go through here, but if you're interested in the issue and the requirements, then the following is pretty good as far as addressing the issues and from a liberal-friendly source (Urban Institute):
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/other_resrch/tanf_ccdf/reports/work_requirements.pdf
In this case specifically, the strategy is to use the demo provisions as a means to increase funding to the states. Practically, this is done by requiring participants to meet higher goals for the numbers of persons who are engaged in "work" (as is required to receive funding under the law). As I recall, the goal mentioned for the demo programs was in the range of 20% over the previous year. So the method to increase funding is to set higher objectives and then require participants to meet such requirements.
Given that it's unlikely that a state could meet the higher funding objectives with the work requirements as they are written (otherwise there would be no need to do this at all, they could simply increase the funding accordingly), they are attempting to redefine what constitutes "work," thereby making it easier to meet the work requirement of the law, thereby meeting the higher targets of the program, and thereby distributing more funds. That is, they're not anticipating actually putting more people to work (as currently defined), they're simply moving the goal posts with respect to what constitutes "work" in order to increase the amount of funding to those assisted under the program.
Now you can argue whether this is a good or bad thing depending on political views, but that's the reality of what's happening. It's not a question of forcing states to do something on a non-voluntary basis; rather, it's an attempt to provide a "loophole" for HHS and states with leadership which favors the administration's view to take advantage of in order to expand funding under the program.
The heart of the matter from the opposition side is that, unlike other changes that have been made legislatively to date as above, this is being done administratively and, more significantly, that it attempts to circumvent THE KEY element of the law with regard to work-to-receive restrictions in direct conflict with what is very clear legislative intent. As a not exactly equivalent but simple analogy just to better illustrate the point, it's somewhat equivalent to redefining what constitutes "water" under the Clean Water Act and doing so at an administrative level.