Well, it's kinda hard to get it back, ahhhh, 'cause it's now obvious that we have a couple new kids in the class who aren't up to speed and that has kinda thrown the class a curve ball... I mean, most threads that discuss serious issues don't have to deal with this... Yeah, there are occasional trolls, which get ignored and the discussion continues but in this case, many of us are at a loss as to whether or not we should rediscuss that apparently the new kids haven't taken the time to discuss, treat the new kids as trolls or just sit back and see if the new kids will make the attempt to get caught up...

And by making generalized statements about the posting of various people, myself included, doesn't really demonstrate, to me that is, that the new kids are ***serious*** about joining in the discussion...

So, let's talk a little bit about the 1996 Welfare Reform...

In it there was money budgeted for child care for working parents (almost exclusively women)... This was all fine and good ezcept what the legislation didn't do was to allow that pool of money to grow with the number of parents who went to work and what has happened is that with newer parents having used up their ADFC assistence and having to take any lousy paying job they can find the money for child care is being cut back for the parents who have tried to play by the rules and are now in a crisis situation with many not being able to ***afford*** to work???

Huh???

Yeah, back to our $8.15 an hour mother who has been recieving vouchers to pay for child care and not being able to make ends meet and now she is told that her voucher will only cover 70% of need... This ain't to difficult a math quaetion here.... If @ $8.15 an hour one can't make the ends meet with child care vouchers, if you cut the value of the voucher then you have worsened this women's situation...

Some might say, "Hey, lady, get a better job" or "Hey, lady, go back to school so you can get a better job" but for those of us who have worked in social work and for those of us who haven't but have some understanding of what it's like to be a woman with 3 kids, an $8.15 job that she once thought she was lucky to find, there is the very sad reality that it is virtually impossible...

(Are you saying that it is impossible, Bobert???)

No, I'm saying that the sytem isn't designed to allow very many women like this to figure a way out... There aren't enough resources being thrown in these parent's (women's) direction for that to happen...

Like I've said before: The right wing loves to say that "you can't solve problems with money" but as they themselves are the ones who have corraled the vast majority of America's wealth, how would they know??? No, this is what Hitler referred to as a "Big Lie"... We've all heard it, over and over... It is thr ight winged mantra... Menawhile the right wing has it's hands in everyone elses pockets...

No, before this thread got slightly highjacked, this is what we were talking about.... It does come down to money...

Bobert