If you are poor and in need of food in Wisconsin, the Federal government just gave you the middle finger all the while they are laughing at the poor and say "F--k you you sniveling little bastards".
The Feds are threatening to withhold money from the old food stamp program because the State of Wisconsin (under both a Dem and GOP governor) decided it might be wiser and cheaper to privatize part of the system.
From jsonline: FoodShare in Wisconsin has more than 800,000 participants and distributes more than $1 billion a year to help low-income residents buy food. The program is largely funded by the federal government but is currently administered by the state and counties, with counties largely doing the work of interviewing applicants to see if they qualify for FoodShare and state health programs such as BadgerCare Plus.
In one major exception to that intake system, however, the Enrollment Services Center begun during the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle handles enrollment statewide for childless adults seeking FoodShare or health care benefits. That center uses private contractor Hewlett-Packard.
According to the USDA, under federal rules only civil servants - public employees - can have direct contact with applicants for and participants in FoodShare. Contractors can do some other tasks such as data entry and document scanning.
Federal officials have raised concerns about the extensive use of contractors to run public benefits programs, pointing to past problems with privatization deals in other states such as Indiana and Texas.
In his letter, Holden said the federal government told Wisconsin officials in January 2010 not to expand their use of private contractors in the Enrollment Services Center offices in Madison and Milwaukee. But during an April visit to Wisconsin, federal officials found the state had increased the numbers of vendor staff and the scope of their work, with Holden writing that this put Wisconsin out of compliance with the January 2010 order.
Holden said the state had 30 days to come up with a plan to correct the problem. If the state doesn't embark on a plan with federal approval, the federal government will withhold future money and seek to be paid back for the cost of contractor salaries going back to January 2010, Holden said. (emphasis mine) http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/122347464.html
So, because the State of Wisconsin wants to save some money and maybe help more people the Fed's cry a hissy fit and say no and if you don't do it our way, we will not only not give you money that will help the hungry and take additional money from the poor to pay back the salaries of the contractors.
The Feds apparently could not point out any problems with Wisconsin but they decided apparently, that public employees are the only one's capable of doing the intake. What a load of crap.
So, to the poor of Wisconsin, President Obama, but mostly the Federal government just said
to the poor and hungry of Wisconsin, f--k you you little mites. We don't care about you, we care about public employees.
As Dad 29 says, buy more ammo. (no, I don't own a gun, but I certainly am thinking about it)
I'm at a loss to figure out how "privatizing" government programs saves any money. When you privatize something, it becomes a business. And businesses have to make a profit. Which usually means it ends up costing more. And we STILL pay for it. I'd love to get a succinct answer on why privatization saves money.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, private employers are more effecient, they don't have to follow governement employee union rules and they don't have to answer to a lot of politicians. Further, when your privatatize, you put out bids to see who can do the best with the least amount of money. In some states, they allow the public employees to bid on jobs and that is great and that should be the rule instead of the exception.
ReplyDelete