🚀 go-pugleaf

What the hell you expect with all those Democrats taxing everyone into 
poverty. All the Democrats do is tax and spend which drive businesses out of 
the state, just like they do in Illinois.


"Jim" <tomfiege9@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:874b687e.0409110320.641fffa8@posting.google.com...
> Pennsylvania Dutch <PennsylvaniaDutch@mail2usa.com> wrote in message 
> news:<iJKdnQegjvMsZtzcRVn-qA@centurytel.net>...
>> Greg Butterfield wrote:
>> > Wisconsin hard-hit by growing poverty
>>
>> If this is the case, how come you got all those Somalis and all those
>> Latino illegal aliens running around in your state...make you
>> bed...sleep in it with the Somalis, Lost Boys and other foreign coons
>> like Mexicoons...
>
>
> Because Wisconsin still suffers from latent political insanity. Will
> the arrival of "brownies" this is changing. The question is: will
> Whites awake in time to resist.
>
> James
>
>> >
>> > By Bryan G. Pfeifer
>> > Milwaukee
>> >
>> > If anyone has any doubts about the ruling class's unrelenting
>> > onslaught against the working class and oppressed in the United
>> > States, recently released poverty statistics by the Census Bureau for
>> > 2003 should put them to rest.
>> >
>> > One of the states with the worst social crisis is Wisconsin.
>> >
>> > Reporting on the Census Bureau's figures released Aug. 26, the
>> > Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that 528,000 people out of a
>> > population of 5 million are estimated to be living below the poverty
>> > level in the state. That is a ten-year high.
>> >
>> > With costs of rent, and of staples such as milk and gas, increasing,
>> > the federal poverty thresholds of $18,810 for a family of four and
>> > $12,015 for two people are abysmal and impossible to survive on.
>> >
>> > Even worse, the bureau found that 187,000 children are in poverty and
>> > that 593,000 Wisconsin residents were without health insurance in
>> > 2003. That is a staggering 46 percent increase over 2000.
>> >
>> > And although urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison with large
>> > populations of nationally oppressed people, especially women and
>> > children, have been decimated, rural and semi-rural areas of the state
>> > have been steamrolled as well.
>> >
>> > Census figures show Waukesha County, just northwest of Milwaukee, with
>> > the second-lowest poverty rate in the United States in 2003 among the
>> > 233 counties with a population of 250,000 or more. But Karen Tredwell,
>> > director of the Food Pantry of Waukesha, is skeptical.
>> >
>> > "It's very difficult for me to reconcile the information that poverty
>> > is reaching low percentages in Waukesha County," she said. In July the
>> > pantry helped more people than any month in its 25-year history.
>> > "That's a huge number of people in need in this very wealthy country."
>> > (www.jsonline.com)
>> >
>> > Although it is undeniable that the continuing loss of mostly union
>> > manufacturing jobs due to capitalist economic policies like
>> > NAFTA--estimated at 84,000 since January 2001--has had a devastating
>> > impact in the state, the Journal Sentinel completely ignored an
>> > objective factor ravaging Wisconsin: W-2.
>> >
>> > Wisconsin became known as a national leader in "welfare reform" by
>> > implementing a pilot program,"Pay for Performance," in 1996. It was a
>> > precursor to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. TANF replaced the
>> > 60-year-old federal welfare program when the welfare-repeal law,
>> > passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in August
>> > 1996, became effective on Sept. 1, 1997.
>> >
>> > TANF lifted most federal mandates on all 50 states, allowing them to
>> > develop their own workfare programs, as they came to be popularly
>> > known. Under the old program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children,
>> > states were required to abide by strict federal mandates. TANF, in
>> > contrast, allowed states to create their own limits and programs with
>> > a bare minimum of federal oversight and regulation.
>> >
>> > There is a five-year lifetime limit for benefits under TANF. After
>> > recipients use up five years' worth of benefits they are on their own
>> > to survive, or not.
>> >
>> > The results have been catastrophic.
>> >
>> > "We have gone since 1996, when Pay for Performance hit, from
>> > distributing 1.5 million pounds of food to 10 million on an emergency
>> > basis," said Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Hunger Task
>> > Force of Milwaukee.
>> >
>> > "If people don't see that as a troublesome statistic, they surely
>> > should see the census numbers as troublesome. A lot of people are
>> > piecing together two and three jobs just to be able to make a rent
>> > payment. All of those things are symptomatic of a lack of household
>> > income to meet basic needs."
>> >
>> > TANF dismantled AFDC, the guaranteed federal entitlement program that
>> > had been in effect since it was won through militant struggles by the
>> > working class and oppressed in the 1930s. Both contenders for the 2004
>> > presidential election support TANF. Democratic contender Sen. John
>> > Kerry voted for its passage.
>> >
>> > Under the leadership of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, now Bush's
>> > Health and Human Services secretary, Wisconsin created the most
>> > demanding workfare program, called W-2. Under W-2, non-profit and
>> > private agencies with multi-year state contracts replaced counties in
>> > dispensing services to recipients.
>> >
>> > One of the greatest victories for the ruling class in the recent
>> > period, the TANF legislation and many states' workfare language was
>> > largely written by right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage
>> > Foundation, bankrolled by capitalist philanthropies like the Bradley
>> > Foundation.
>> >
>> > Since 1997 labor and community organizations and even the corporate
>> > media have reported on W-2 agency executives profiting from contracts
>> > that rewarded agencies providing minimum levels of service, and
>> > declaring recipi ents "job-ready" prematurely, among many other
>> > abuses.
>> >
>> > From the outset various labor and community organizations such as the
>> > Milwaukee-based Job is A Right Cam paign denounced W-2 as a
>> > slave-labor, union-busting program, and called for the unionization of
>> > W-2 workers.
>> >
>> > The way to end the wrenching poverty described in the Census Bureau's
>> > survey is not to steer the working class and oppressed to vote for
>> > capitalist politicians like Bush and Kerry who profit from their
>> > misery.
>> >
>> > The way forward includes mobilizing and fighting in the streets for
>> > people's programs like AFDC and to organize the unorganized.
>> >
>> > The Oct. 17 Million Workers March in Washington, D.C., is just such an
>> > endeavor. See www.millionworkermarch.org.
>> >
>> >
>> > Reprinted from the Sept. 9, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
>> >
>> > (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
>> > distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
>> > allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
>> > NY 10011; via email: ww@workers.org. Subscribe
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