Stacey Campfield, Tennessee GOP Lawmaker, Wants To Tie Welfare Benefits To Children's Grades
10:22 pm - 01/26/2013
Tennessee state Rep. Stacey Campfield (R) introduced a bill this week seeking to make welfare benefits contingent upon the grades of a would-be recipient's children.
Campfield's legislation, filed Thursday, would "require the reduction of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) payments for parents or caretakers of TANF recipients whose children fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school." TANF is more commonly referred to as welfare.
Under Campfield's bill, welfare recipients would face a loss of benefits if their children showed poor academic performance. It's unclear how these factors would be tied to one another, or how the children's performance would be assessed.
In a blog addressing his proposal, Campfield calls his bill a measure to "break the cycle of poverty." According to Campfield, education is a "three legged stool" comprised of schools, teachers and parents. He claims the state has adequately held the first two legs of the school accountable, but argues that it should apply more pressure on the third.
"The third leg of the stool (probably the most important leg) is the parents," Campfield writes. "We have done little to hold them accountable for their child's performance. What my bill would do is put some responsibility on parents for their child's performance."
Campfield has been a pioneer of creative ways to target beneficiaries of entitlement programs in the past. He was a driving force behind failed efforts to require Tennesseeans seeking government benefits to first pass drug tests.
He was also the legislator behind Tennessee's controversial and ill-fated "don't say gay bill" in early 2012.
Source: HuffPo
OP: First time posting here. Mods, I hope I've got all this right. If I haven't, let me know what I need to fix.
Campfield's legislation, filed Thursday, would "require the reduction of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) payments for parents or caretakers of TANF recipients whose children fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school." TANF is more commonly referred to as welfare.
Under Campfield's bill, welfare recipients would face a loss of benefits if their children showed poor academic performance. It's unclear how these factors would be tied to one another, or how the children's performance would be assessed.
In a blog addressing his proposal, Campfield calls his bill a measure to "break the cycle of poverty." According to Campfield, education is a "three legged stool" comprised of schools, teachers and parents. He claims the state has adequately held the first two legs of the school accountable, but argues that it should apply more pressure on the third.
"The third leg of the stool (probably the most important leg) is the parents," Campfield writes. "We have done little to hold them accountable for their child's performance. What my bill would do is put some responsibility on parents for their child's performance."
Campfield has been a pioneer of creative ways to target beneficiaries of entitlement programs in the past. He was a driving force behind failed efforts to require Tennesseeans seeking government benefits to first pass drug tests.
He was also the legislator behind Tennessee's controversial and ill-fated "don't say gay bill" in early 2012.
Source: HuffPo
OP: First time posting here. Mods, I hope I've got all this right. If I haven't, let me know what I need to fix.
Also, what the fuck! What if a kid has a learning disability? what if a kid is stressed and can't concentrate because *gasp* he's not getting the food and other things he needs to be successful because *gasp* the state just made him the focus of the entire family's needs? I mean, really?! you're making a KID the pin on which proper aid hinges?! that's not going to fuck with the kid's mind, oh no, not at all!
And yeah, my first, instinctive reaction was ??!!??, because my son is on the autism spectrum -- and his grades are NOT good, no matter what we do or try.
Ugh.
If your stupid racist ass gave half a shit about the families you're supposedly trying to help, you would not sponsor a bill that effectively makes children responsible for whether their families starve.
(I'm not in any way trying to imply that people on welfare are bad parents like mine was, btw)
(I had major first-time-posting nerves, lemme tell you.)
I am really happy to hear that under this rule I would have gone hungry as a child. Because a min wage single income can't cover the cost of two kids, let alone the medication that my brother needed for depression. The same depression that had him fail two years of high school.
And this would've made me go hungry, too. Not because my dad didn't care, but because I was fucking miserable. So yeah, punish him and me because my school was total shit - makes perfect sense, really (in the minds of conservatives).
What I sent (I specified the bill in the subject):
As a citizen of TN, I think this bill is deplorable. Poor kids already tend to not do as well in school because it's the end of the month and they can't eat as much, they have to work themselves, they cannot afford tutors, their parents can't help them with homework because they work all the time or don't have a good enough education themselves. What if the children have a learning or social disability? To tie the family's well being when it comes to food or help with rent is immoral. It puts an undue burden on the child, who would be blamed or beaten by abusive parents. Denying them benefits would just make doing well in school even more difficult. By introducing this bill you are not serving the people of TN, but rather your own career in a party that regularly denigrates the poor.
Edited at 2013-01-27 04:51 am (UTC)
Unless it's being a parent of that child, having to decide what to tell the child about it in the first place. Especially in those situations where you're not sure whether the child could get it if she really tries, or if she really can't get it. What if you guess wrong? What if you starve for three or four months and when the child finds out she's horrified because she would've taken it so much more seriously if she'd known? Or what if you tell the child it's based on her academic performance and she really was trying and try as she might she can't do better?
Next thing you know they'll be giving out benefits tied to promising the child for the army or something, Hunger Games style.
What the everloving FUCK is she thinking?
Under Campfield's bill, welfare recipients would face a loss of benefits if their children showed poor academic performance.
How does she think this wouldn't get around to putting pressure on children?
*please hold, brain attempting to reboot*
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"Unless, you know, it's to keep poor people from getting entitlement money. In that case, we'll spend even more money setting up a huge new bureaucracy than we'll save from the miniscule cuts they wind up making."
Edited at 2013-01-27 07:56 am (UTC)
How do these assholes like this get elected?
Yet another hope dashed.
That sounds helpful.