Before and After: Jobs Down, Poverty and Government Dependence Up During the Obama Administration Economic Data Is a Stark Reminder of Obama Administration’s Failed Policies  Before Obama*  After Obama**  Change Jobs (Payroll Employment)  136.8 million  133.5 million (9/2012)  – 3.3 million Not in Labor Force  79.5 million  88.7 million (9/2012)  + 9.2 million  People in Poverty  39.8 million  46.2 million (CY 2011)  + 6.4 million Welfare Recipients (TANF)  4.0 million  4.5 million (12/2011)  + 0.5 million Disability Recipients (SSI/SSDI)  12.1 million (12/08)  14.0 million (8/2012)  + 1.9 million Food Stamp Recipients (SNAP)  28.2 million  46.7 million (7/2012)  + 18.5 million Sources: Department of Labor payroll and household surveys; Census Bureau poverty data; HHS TANF data; Social Security Administration SSI/SSDI 2008 and 2012 data; and Department of Agriculture data.  *CY 2008 average, unless otherwise noted.  **Most recent available data.

Playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop” with welfare, won’t work any more.  The word is getting out!

What those numbers don’t tell you, individual bloggers have been, and will continue to.  We also Tweet, facebook, use social media, converse, blogtalk radio, write, and talk.  And there are more of us than there are of Congress, even though we do not have access to the wealth that Congressman often do, and that they, as Congressmen, appropriate as their apparent “handlers” (foundations, campaign funders, etc.) tell them to.*

Block grants to the state simply enables diversion of money which would otherwise feed children — in whatever household they’re residing — into programs which the HHS doesn’t track, but when it even DOES track, it doesn’t do much about the serious fraud and waste involved.

Then, when someone else (such as Richard Fine, or others) points out not only waste, but also fraud in the matter of child support which was collected — yet (by the millions) sat earning interest in government offices — to the tune of about $14 million for just ONE County (Los Angeles) — and points out other illegal (by state constitution) behavior by the County and its Judges — they disbar him, steal his earned attorneys’ fees, and lead him away from the courtroom, handcuffed, without proper charges, and later falsify the arrest record (2009ff).  He rots there in solitary confinement for fully 18 months until a judge releases the man, having failed to break his spirit.

Over at HHS/OAS/OIG — it’s more than well known that there’s about as much fraud in HHS as in HUD (which has become quite a reputation as a criminal element of government) — and this is about the best they can do — write up reports, on selected, occasional areas audited, wring their wrists, and rather than (when it comes to Child Support) work to get the money distributed, but work to get the Federal’s portion back.  Anne Stevenson has blogged this over at Huffington Post, and we are publicizing it — the federalization of the state governments.  $2 federal to $1 state (OCSE), and the size of the black hole is NOT KNOWN, which we know they don’t know.

HHS/OIG — there is so much pooled wealth being distributed nationwide, it takes an office of over 1700 employees to protect from fraud!  And although HHS administers over 300 programs (including — see chart above) — they are focused it seems primarily on Medicaid and Medicare Fraud.  Since 1996, the block grants to the states, and the statewide centralization of child support distribution into “SDU” (Statewide Distribution Units) not only support a whole other apparatus — and databases), but it too has acknowledged fraud that the OIG hardly has time to look at.  

And when they do– they don’t have teeth.  Let’s take a very, very quick look!

Mission

Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) mission is to protect the integrity of Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) programs as well as the health and welfare of program beneficiaries.

Who We Are

Since its 1976 establishment, OIG has been at the forefront of the Nation’s efforts to fight waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid and more than 300 other HHS programs.

HHS OIG is the largest inspector general’s office in the Federal Government, with more than 1,700 employees dedicated to combating fraud, waste and abuse and to improving the efficiency of HHS programs. A majority of OIG’s resources goes toward the oversight of Medicare and Medicaid — programs that represent a significant part of the  Federal budget and that affect this country’s most vulnerable citizens

Office of Audit Services (OAS)

The Office of Audit Services (OAS) conducts independent audits of HHS programs and/or HHS grantees and contractors. These audits examine the performance of HHS programs and/or grantees in carrying out their responsibilities and provide independent assessments of HHS programs and operations. . . .

OAS is the largest civilian audit agency in the Federal Government. OAS conducts its work in accordance with Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States; the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996; applicable Office of Management and Budget circulars; and other legal, regulatory, and administrative requirements. OAS also:

• provides assistance in criminal, civil, and administrative investigations conducted by OIG’s Office of Investigations and the Department of Justice;
• oversees non-Federal audit activity, including conducting quality control reviews of audits of State and local governments, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations; and
• oversees HHS’s annual financial statement audits conducted under the Chief Financial Officers Act and HHS’s annual Federal Information Security Management Act audits.

Stopping Fraud with this much collective, pooled temptation around —  is a huge task.  Now think:  every one of this is an expense, an employee (plus benefits), materials, contractors, reports, professionals — it’s a major apparatus.  Now — where is the money for their salaries coming from?  (I am beginning to get this answer, but how many even think about it — we are so accustomed to HUGE federal government and seeing this government as something to do business with, or to get our piece of the pie from.  Where did that pie come from to start with?

When the Republicans or Democrats talk about jobs — I seen plenty of jobs in the government sector, including these — trying to stop fraudsters; which is always someone else — not the government itself, somehow….

Click on “reports” to get to:

(HHS/OIG) OFFICE OF AUDIT SERVICES from there, select:

• Administration for Children and Families (ACF) (only one among 11 options, representing different OpDivs — and one reading

• • A scan of more recent audits (the entire page, 2012, 2011) unearthed only ONE relating child support. In this ONE summary, they concluded approximately $50 million was inappropriately held and handled by the states (below).
  • However by looking at what they ARE auditing — in just this ACF alone — we can see that Head Start, Community Action Agencies, Community Development Block Grants, and sometimes Foster Care, were areas of concern.

  • 09-30-2011Rollup Review on States’ Reporting of Undistributable Child Support Collections as Program Income (A-05-11-00025)

This is not just “a” review, but a “roll-up review”….

Now LOOK!

They audited 21 states (23 times) and of these 17 states were screwups.  The states were hanging onto to — collectively — $50 MILLION of undistributed — but collected — child support.  In the language of the Audit, the Fed shows zero concern about getting it to those children, or getting it back to the parents who paid it (probably through wage garnishments) in expectation it should actually reach their offspring.   Rather, the Fed is concerned more about getting its investment back.

This means someone else is profiting from the OCSE, other than the states, and, year after year after year, how much — only God knows, collectively.  It’s a Bermuda triangle.  Now whose kids are these, and whose money is it we’ve given for our leaders to steward, manage and distribute?  with that level of mis-appropriation, I believe they should get less, and we should retain more.  Now — is that change going to happen with a shame-faced government apparatus saying “oh, we’re sorry — here — you can have your cash back, and we’ll dismantle the programs that are engaging in systemic fraud, while invading your privacy and messing with your stability!!….” {{hardly — right?}}

And that, I believe, is why there’s so much press release on this or that, lest the farm and corporation workers and other busy bees have the time, the technology, and the attitude to demand better accounting, and the ability to go get it!  I’m not talking ‘Occupy” either…..I‘m talking about, get the information, get it publicized, and start asking the right questions.  

I will personally assert that some of this money is by now coming from nonabusive parents (including mothers) who are paying the fathers.  I have some ideas for how regular citizens (who are willing to pay attention) can start doing something about this — because it’s fairly obvious the Feds don’t care — they want their share back.  The states don’t care — they want to keep their “abandoned” property progam income.

Incidentally, I had to type that paragraph above twice (i.e., words once typed suddenly disappeared.  This is called hacking — someone wants to let me know they’re onto this, possibly….It wouldn’t be the first time, I am not the only (activist/advocate-minded) mother who has noted the phenomenon.

Here’s the 2011 summary and link to the fuller report.  Either way, it’s not going to help those kids that didn’t get theirs.

I’ll tell you something else — some of this “undistributable” is probably going to intentionally misdirected or mis-typed street addresses or persons.  If they do this consistently with the TAGGS database, how about when it comes to delivering child support?  Anyone reading this had court pleadings inexplicably re-routed to the wrong address, causing you to miss an important hearing, or similar situations?

Here’s the excerpt:

Executive Summary

In our 23 previous audits of undistributable child support collections, we found that 21 States did not recognize and/or report undistributable child support collections as program income in accordance with Federal requirements. Specifically, 17 States did not recognize and report undistributable child support collections totaling $32.8 million ($21.3 million Federal share) as abandoned, and 14 States did not report $16.6 million ($11 million Federal share) as program income after the States recognized the funds as undistributable child support collections. An undistributable child support collection occurs when the State agency receives a child support payment but cannot identify or locate the custodial parent or return the funds to the noncustodial parent. States must offset program costs by recognizing and reporting undistributable child support collections as program income at the time the funds are considered abandoned under State law.

These deficiencies occurred because States did not have adequate controls to ensure that undistributable child support collections were recognized and reported as program income in accordance with Federal requirements. Some States avoided or circumvented abandoned property laws by not classifying undistributable child support collections as abandoned or not requiring that abandoned property be transferred to the State’s abandoned property account. In addition, certain States were not aware of the Office of Child Support Enforcement’s reporting requirements.

(How come?  Why not?)

We recommended that ACF either (1) develop a uniform Federal policy for reporting undistributable child support as program income that does not rely on States’ definitions of abandoned property or (2)(a) provide increased oversight of States to ensure the appropriate reporting of outstanding undistributable child support collections that qualify as abandoned property and (b) issue guidance that collections determined to be undistributable should be reclassified and reported as program income when the State, in accordance with State laws and regulations, defines these funds as abandoned. ACF stated that it was addressing the issue of undistributable child support collections in response to our work and would provide policy guidance and reiterate its reporting requirements.

Complete Report

Download the complete report

As we can see, the feds didn’t exhibit any concern about the states literally losing track of parents, and/or children while maintaining open child support cases, earning interest in special funds within the state’s possession.  They suggest increased monitoring of the states  (I’m not holding my breath) which, should it actually occur, would be even more centralized — and who’s going to pay for it?

What’s wrong with that picture?  PLENTY!  think about it before election day (bring up welfare reform) and be aware that welfare reform reauthorization, most components, is now postponed til March 2013.

Another sample audit (a really old one) shows other areas of gaps and loops in accounting.  How family counseling and psychotherapy (which is always being pushed, right, including through the courts) — sometimes ends up in billing for services not rendered.  The key is for the wrong people to get ahold of people’s social security numbers and utilize them.

THAT’s probably why they want more people in the system, despite who much is said about wanting people OFF the welfare roles!

• Federal/State Joint Audit Initiatives
  • Audit covers 1998-2002 Illinois, found two “alternate payees” (not named in the report) who billed for services not provided, including psychotherapy counseling to at-risk children.  One was a for-profit and the other a not-for-profit, sharing the same CEO.  over $7.5 million was billed for services never received.  The OIG, on its part, recommends that the fed get reimbursed its share of approximately $3.7 million of this.  Hover cursor for description (or click through, although it’s a lot of text to find!)  They were billing for more than 24 hour days, and alternate payees were targeting counseling for families as well:
  • The routine identified 146 practitioners with at least 1 day greater than 12 hours. There were 16 practitioners identified in the routine with overPage 4 – Ms. Jackie Garner10 days greater than 24 hours, the most being 371 days. Of the 146 practitioners, 32 are currently the subject of an ongoing investigation or review. Six of the 114 remaining had over 10 days greater than 24 hours. Of these, one practitioner had 328 days exceeding 24 hours.

Or, paying to “alternate payees” who didn’t qualify, again, I don’t see off-hand, for how long this situation was going on in Illinois:

“Alternate Payee Arrangements. Under certain conditions, IDPA permits individual physicians to designate an alternate payee for payment of claims for services provided by the physician. We found that the majority of the Medicaid payments made on behalf of Physician A were paid to two alternate payees, referred to as Payee A and Payee B in this report. Payee A was a not-for- profit corporation that was organized to provide community based social services to at-risk children and their families.These services were to include counseling, educational enrichment, youth leadership, youth employment training, GED program, computer literacy, and youth recreational programs. Payee B was a related for-profit entity that contracted with counselors to provide counseling services to Payee A’s clients. Both corporations share the same Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

As I keep pointing out, for most “NONprofits,” there’s usually an associated FORprofit.  Looks like the Physician should’ve known better, but I don’t see any actions reprimanding or docking the physician for allowing medicaid frauds…. The underlined area shows that this type of stealing is done under the claim of concern for poor and at-risk families.

During the course of the Partnership, it was determined that neither Payee A nor Payee B met the conditions of the 89 Illinois Administrative Code to qualify as an alternate payee for physicians. As a result, their alternate payee agreements were canceled by IDPA on August 30, 2001.

SUMMARY:  Despite is 1700 employees, we cannot rely on the OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL to get this work done, and therefore the black hole of nonaccountability will continue until something forces a change.  I suggest that as part of this, more regular people start reading “Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports” and turn off something else, if necessary, to do so!  These show the collective wealth of the United States of America, each state, and (if looked up and looked at) government entitities WITHIN each state.  That means, at least a few people in every single county of every single state, wake up, start reading, start understanding, start reporting, and start teaching someone else.  Then we, collectively, start talking back to mainstream media AND our elected representatives, and force them to admit — they knew about these reports all along, and could’ve been talking about them, but chose not to — because more income from the people = more wealth for others who help keep them in office!

WHEN IT COMES TO WELFARE — READ THIS FIRST!

ANNE STEVENSON — HUFFINGTON POST BLOG.

(yes, I know yesterday I talked about “M.S.IA.” and Arianna’s preoccupation with this, Spiritual Psychology in California Marriage and Family Therapists — but still, there’s a Huffpost blog outlining some of the basics, and in lay terms anyone can understand!)

(by the way, the author is only responsible for what she’s said, and not the commentary, or for anything about how I frame it, etc.).

You should read this!  And some of the 32 comments (about 4 of them are mine, outlining the same issue — TANF diversions!).  While many of us individual parents (and parents are quoted in this article) may have slight differences of approach, one thing we DO know is that the federal government’s radical restructuring of welfare into Block Grants to the States (which TANF, and its various re-authorizations, are) is expanding the welfare roles — deliberately, I say — and diverting money from the ethical.

We do not have the financial clout to set up resource centers (at this point) to out-propagate such things as I blogged last post — the “national responsible fatherhood clearinghouse” which is essentially a propaganda center funded by progressive reauthorizations of “Business as Usual” regardless of which political party was in power.  In my opinion (don’t blame others for it….) Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all endorsed this. Probably their electoral races would’ve been a moot point if they didn’t openly propagate for this kind of slush fund as “business s usual.”

The people running these programs are living off them, or multiples of them — taking nonprofit exemptions, peddling curricula and propaganda no one needs under the fourth purpose of welfare (encourage the formation of two-parent families), and failing to stay incorporated, whether faith-based or not faith-based!  I have documented this, and it’s not up for debate when the IRS says, or a Secretary of State says, “forfeit” or “suspended” or “revoked” to a group which got federal grants.

*ALEC Board of Directors

(note:  civil servants, elected members of the US Congress)

• Chairman, Indiana, Rep. Dave Frizell.
• Also from:  Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, South Carolina, Texas, New York, (Iowa again), Utah, Rhode Island, Indiana (again), Colorado, Mississippi, Louisiana (again), Virginia, Texas (again), Arkansas, Tennessee, Kansas, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee (again), Wisconsin and Kansas (again).
• (I notice California’s not on there…. or Oregon, Washington, Florida, Illinois, etc.)

*ALEC Private Enterprise Board

(notice heavy presence of pharmaceuticals:  Bayer, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, PhRMA.

(Til today — I never heard of PhRMA — but its About Us is clear enough — develop more medicines.  Its member organizations include the above-mentioned pharmaceutical companies, plus Merck, Bristol-Myers, Sanofi-Pasteur, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, etc.).  PhRMA  is an association — not a manufacturer.  I guess we could say it’s a political lobbying force?

It also has a foundation to raise money for more research.  Again, PhRMA gets to collaborate with a chunk of US legislators at conferences how many individual citizens even know about, or attend — though their kids may be on some of these medications, or in foster care being drugged, and though there have been, over the years, a number of mass-shootings and other events in which anti-psychotics have been involved, although there’s issues with such things as Bush’s TMAPP algorithm for how to get more people on drugs?  And although a number of PhRMA members have had lawsuits for dishonest and fraudulent promotion of their drugs, paid multi-million$$ settlements, and continue to contract with our government, so far as I can tell?

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical industry research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. PhRMA companies are leading the way in the search for new cures. PhRMA members alone invested an estimated $49.5 billion in 2011 in discovering and developing new medicines.

America’s biopharmaceutical research sector is the global leader in medical innovation, with more than 300 new medicines approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the last decade. Roughly 2,900 compounds are currently being studied in the United States — more than all other regions.

Our History

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the industry group was founded as the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association in 1958. The name changed to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in 1994 to underscore the extraordinary commitment of member companies to research.

Over a quarter century, the biopharmaceutical industry has evolved, with five major trends characterizing the changes: increased complexity of the research and development process; continued investment in R&D; increased use of medicines in health care; increased value for today’s patients; and continued importance of intellectual property protections including patents and data protection for innovative medicines.

ALEC Scholars (note:  Stephen Moore, formerly of Heritage Foundation (closely associated with the marriage/fatherhood push), Cato Institute, etc.) Here are the first two out of five — all men.  Our nation is half women, FYI:

ALEC’s Board of Scholars Program honors those whose distinguished work and dedication to market-based policy innovations have been, and continue to be, invaluable to ALEC and its membership. This convergence of ALEC with the great policy thinkers will further ALEC’s mission of expanding free markets, limited government, and individual liberty. The following are members of the ALEC Board of Scholars:

Dr. Arthur B. Laffer

Arthur B. Laffer is the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, an economic research and consulting firm. As a result of Dr. Laffer’s economic insight and influence in starting a worldwide tax cutting movement during the 1980s, many publications have named him The Father of Supply Side Economics. He is a founding member of the Congressional Policy Advisory Board, which assisted in forming legislation for the 105th, 106th and 107th Congress. Dr. Laffer served as a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms. In March 1999, he was noted by Time Magazine as one of “the Century’s Greatest Minds” for his invention of the Laffer curve, which has been called one of “a few of the advances that powered this extraordinary century.” He has received many awards for his economic research including two Graham and Dodd Awards from the Financial Analyst Federation. He graduated from Yale with a Bachelor’s degree in economics in 1963 and received both his MBA and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

I don’t know about “the Laffer Curve.”  I know about the repeating cycles of domestic violence, after which family courts, and the role of welfare reform in prolonging these.  I also know that our public schools aren’t teaching our kids economics, math, reading, and a whole lot more they would do well to know.

Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore joined The Wall Street Journal as a member of the editorial board and senior economics writer on May 31, 2005. He splits his time between Washington D.C. and New York, focusing on economic issues including budget, tax and monetary policy. Moore has been a frequent contributor to WSJ over the years, and is previously known as the founder and former president of the Club for Growth, which raises money for political candidates who favor free-market economic policies. He left that position in 2004.  Just prior to coming to WSJ, Stephen was president of a new organization, the Free Enterprise Fund. Over the years, Moore has served as a senior economist on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, as a budget expert for the Heritage Foundation, and as a senior economics fellow at the Cato Institute, where he published dozens of studies on federal and state tax and budget policy. He was a consultant to the National Economic Commission in l987 and research director for President Reagan’s Commission on Privatization.

As such, I’m going to presume he is aware what’s going on since the 1996, and why it’s been going on.

Who is “ALEC?” — it’s a nonprofit association:  American Legislative Exchange Council.

Keeping in mind the extent of influence of ALEC (and I only profiled the Pharma Enterprise task force members, not the energy ones, or even the Chair’s company) — this is what their 990 says they do –and this is part of who is setting what my look like STATE-LEVEL legislation, but in fact isn’t.  It’s Governmental/Corporate-drafted legislation to better manage us down at the farm.  If you’re not connected at this level, you are not invited to the planning meetings.

These people own businesses, or run them, invest in stocks, but securities (that’s for others’ debts, got it) and are global in scope and sometimes ownership.   They are very, very, very interested in keeping enough pharmaceuticals around (I haven’t this post brought up the “narco-dollars” issue also but don’t forget it, see C.A. Fitts, right?) for profit, and population control.  That this will never lead to eugenics or forcible sterilization is simply idiotic.  It has before!  Drugged people are easier to control.  Drugged-up people who then go chaotic (and shoot) also justify more lockdown on an area.  So, can we get real on some of this?  How warm does the water have to be, leapfrogs???

This is from the top tax return, under (page 2 of the 990s), “Program Service Accomplishments” (there will be some typos due to OCR & cut & paste function here):

<>Task Forces – ALEC’s Task Forces provide a forum for legislators and the private sector to discuss issues, develop policies, and draft model legislation. The Task Forces include the following: Civil Justice; Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; Education; Energy, Environment and Agriculture; Health and Human Services; International Relations; Public Safety and Elections; Tax and Fiscal Policy: and Telecommunications and Information Technology.

<>Conferences – ALEC holds national conferences, providing workshops on current issues with leading experts, public figures and elected officials. The conferences draft and adopt model legislation and policy. The three national conferences held during 2010 were the Spring Task Force Summit, Annual Meeting and States and National Policy Summit.

<>Membership manages the programs for the recruitment and ALEC State Legislator members. This includes liaison with the ALEC State Chairs and Private Sector State Chairs. In addition, Membership provides assistance to ALEC State Chairs in raising state scholarship funds, tracking the expenditures of these funds, and ensuring that members of ALEC’s leadership are operating in accordance with ALEC’s policies and procedures.

Scribes, pharisees and hypocrites — for real! A hypocrite is someone saying one thing, while intentionally and deceitfully doing the opposite.

Anne Stevenson

Policy Advisor, Consultant

Top 5 HHS Programs Endangering Women and Children

(32) Comments | Posted May 14, 2012 | 12:15 PM

The so-called “War on Women” is raging, and billions of your tax dollars are being misused to fuel it via the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The solution is to remove the middle class from the welfare roles and do away with gender-based funding incentives.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program it created transformed welfare policy by drastically reducing and shifting federal assistance away from the homes of mothers and children and into the homes of violent offenders. In an article entitled “How Federal Welfare Funding Drives Judicial Discretion in Child-Custody Determinations and Domestic Relations Matters” fathers and rights activists Lary Holland and Jason Bottomsly explain that this policy has backfired because the incentives are structured so that the state will only benefit if children are removed from loving homes:

“In essence, the federal guidelines wanted the states to function as collection agencies, recovering financial support from parents who had willfully abandoned their parental responsibilities to their children. The result, however, was different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs to adjust their environment to have a greater need, which has caused the program to collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving environment for their children absent a court order limiting a parent’s involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it now provides an incentive for the states to use their family courts to produce forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states’ IV-D welfare caseload.”

These HHS policies created a new breed of dangerous Welfare Kings through HHS Office of Child Support Enforcement when it began subsidizing the homes and legal battles of the unfit, unwilling, and violent fathers. At the beginning of a custody case, only the offender is sick, but if one violent offender gets custody, the whole family needs treatment. Consequently, it is also not uncommon for dozens of family court mental health and legal professionals onto the case to sustain his deadly custody rights through HHS programs.

{{end of quote from Huffpost blog}}

HHS Gets Waivers Right – on Child Welfare, not TANF

October 4, 2012 – Washington, DC – On Thursday, October 4, Michigan announced that the Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved their application to operate a child welfare demonstration project to test ways to better prevent child maltreatment. Michigan is one of nine states approved to op… More

• Camp, Hatch Demand Details from HHS on Welfare Waiver Scheme

  September 21, 2012 – Washington, DC – Today, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide a legal analysis detailing how the agency determined it had the unilater… More

• Camp Statement on Passage of Resolution Disapproving the Obama Administration’s Attempt to Undermine Welfare Work Requirements

  September 20, 2012 – Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) made the following statement after the House voted to disapprove of the Obama Administration’s attempt to undermine the welfare work requirements. The vote was 250 to 164, with 19 Democrats joining 231 Republicans in rejecting the Adm… More

• New GAO Report: HHS Previously Said It Did Not Have Authority to Waive Welfare Work Requirements

  September 19, 2012 – Washington, DC – Today, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its latest report on the Obama Administration’s proposal to waive work requirements for welfare recipients, which was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on July 12, 2012. While a prior… More

• Camp Urges Further Action to Prevent Waivers of Welfare Work Requirements

  September 13, 2012 – Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) issued the following statement after the Committee approved, by a vote of 18 to 14, H.J.Res. 118, “Providing for congressional disapproval of the Administration’s July 12, 2012 waiver of welfare work requirements.” “Today’s vote in the… More

• House Republicans Introduce Bill to Block Obama Administration’s Controversial Welfare Waiver Scheme

  September 11, 2012 – Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) today introduced H.J.Res. 118, a resolution disapproving of President Obama’s effort to roll back the work requirements cri… More

  Listen to this  all you want.  Just remember what I wrote near the top!