Note to Republicans: "Killing Expired Program Won’t Save Money"

[ProSense]

Killing Expired Program Won’t Save Money

Yesterday, the Republican Study Committee issued a press release announcing one of its first ideas for tackling spending: eliminating the TANF Emergency Fund, which the RSC says would save $25 billion over the next decade “by restoring welfare reform.” There are so many problems with this proposal that it’s hard to know where to begin. Here are the facts:

• The TANF Emergency Fund no longer exists. It expired on September 30. You can’t achieve savings by ending a program that has already ended.
  
  
• Nobody has ever proposed spending $25 billion on the fund. Earlier this year the House passed a bill to extend it for one year, at a cost of $2.5 billion — one-tenth of the savings that the RSC claims.
  
  
• The TANF Emergency Fund is welfare reform. In fact, the fund represents welfare reform at its best: it has enabled states to expand work-focused programs within TANF despite high unemployment and a weak economy. Using the fund, states placed about 250,000 low-income parents and youth in subsidized jobs, mostly in the private sector.

As we’ve explained before, the RSC’s claim that the TANF Emergency Fund “incentivizes states to increase their welfare caseloads” is simply wrong. States didn’t have to increase their caseloads to qualify for money from the fund. In fact, some states whose caseloads had sharply declined despite the recession used money from the fund to help create subsidized jobs or provide one-time assistance to families in crisis (such as help paying a back rent or utility bill for a family facing eviction).

In addition, people receiving TANF assistance funded through the Emergency Fund had to meet the same stringent work requirements imposed on other TANF recipients. They had 12 weeks to find a job — an extremely difficult task in today’s labor market — after which they had to meet their work requirement through other work activities, such as unpaid work. A limited number of recipients were permitted to pursue short-term education and training.

more

Guess they killed it again to make sure it was still dead.

Bob Herbert (July): A Jobs Program That Work:

Is it possible that there is a federal stimulus program that is putting many thousands of struggling individuals to work and is getting rave reviews not only from Democrats but from officials in conservative states like South Carolina and Mississippi?

It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. The program, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, allows states to use federal dollars to temporarily subsidize the salaries of individuals placed in private- and public-sector jobs. More than 30 states are participating.

The program, though small, appears to be working exceptionally well. States expect to have placed more than 200,000 individuals by this coming autumn. Some of those workers would otherwise have landed on welfare.

The catch — there is always a catch — is that the program will expire at the end of September if Congress does not act to extend it.

<...>

NYT (September): Job Loss Looms as Part of Stimulus Act Expires

Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion stimulus act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses.

In rural Perry County, Tenn., the program helped pay for roughly 400 new jobs in the public and private sectors. But in a county of 7,600 people, those jobs had a big impact: they reduced Perry County’s unemployment rate to less than 14 percent this August, from the Depression-like levels of more than 25 percent that it hit last year after its biggest employer, an auto parts factory, moved to Mexico.


<...>

In Mississippi, an innovative program used the money to pay private companies to hire nearly 3,200 workers, and to pay their salaries on a sliding scale so that the employers would end up paying the entire amount after six months.

Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, described the initiative there as “welfare to work.” Mr. Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said in an interview last winter that he hoped the program would be extended past this month, since it took so long for the state’s program to get federal approval.

<...>

[gmoney]

1. well, to be fair, 10 times 2.5 IS 25

"Nobody has ever proposed spending $25 billion on the fund. Earlier this year the House passed a bill to extend it for one year, at a cost of $2.5 billion — one-tenth of the savings that the RSC claims."

...they're extrapolating annual extensions over the next ten years, which would total $25 billion, presuming the annual amount stayed the same.

[droidamus2]

2. So what their saying is

If we had kept the program going, like those socialist Democrats wanted to do, and we funded it at 2.5 billion a year, like those commie Democrats wanted to do, and we did that for 10 years, like those tax and spend Democrats would love to do, then we would have spent $25,000,000,000. So see we are already saving you money because if you elected Democrats that is what would have happened so just remember to vote Republican in 2012. Of course what they forget to tell you is it's all made up and they are already campaigning for the next election.

[nykym]

4. I think this is their first of many

Emily Litella moment. Program already expired, OH! Never Mind

[subterranean]

7. That is exactly what this is about.

They'll be able to go on Fox News and say, "Look, we saved $25 billion just by cutting this one program." Facts don't matter in the right-wing world. They create their own reality.

[ProSense]

3. Well,

they're ridiculous because $25 billion over 10 years to put people back to work is a small amount in terms of ROI compared to cutting $100 to $200 billion from the defense budget.

Of course, that is if one can get pass the ridiculousness of saving money by cutting an expired program.

[karynnj]

5. Here's a link to Kerry explaining what the program would do.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=597789750

As you state, the program already expired - so it obviously gives the Republicans no savings.

The fact though is that the program actually has some positive gains - so EVEN IF it were ongoing, the true savings would need to net out any gains the program provided. Listen to what John Kerry said it has been used for - Scrooge, before meeting any of the ghosts, was kinder and more generous than these Republicans - both those who defeated the amendment on this - (it was bundled into an amendment that Patty Murray had for summer jobs)

As Senator Kerry said:
"YOU KNOW, THIS IS A FUNDAMENTAL CONTINUATION OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT THAT EXISTS IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE'VE ALL COME TO UNDERSTAND THAT COMMUNITIES ARE SUSTAINED AND ENORMOUS DIFFERENCES MADE IN THE LIVES OF CHILDREN PARTICULARLY, BUT IN FAMILIES, THE NEEDIEST FAMILIES IN OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF WHOM HAVE THE HARDEST TIME FINDING JOBS BECAUSE THEY'RE AT THE BOTTOM END OF THE ENTRY LEVEL OF JOB LEVELS IN MANY CASES, AND THEY ARE THE MOST -- THOSE ARE THE JOBS THAT HAVE BEEN LOST THE FASTEST AND THE QUICKEST."

(sorry for the Caps - CSPAN's transcript works this way.)

[sellitman]

6. The last election gave me a Boehner

And that's about it!