This week, our work in the House continued to move quickly as we advanced common-sense legislation to help Missouri’s economy and families. A bill I co-sponsored, House Bill 73 seeks to reform the way Missouri pays out welfare benefits to children and families in need. Sadly, around 60,000 children each month are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (or TANF) welfare payments. While this program means well, these benefits are distributed to whoever is registered as the child’s parent, and far too often these “parents” spend money meant to feed their child on themselves. Not surprisingly, if one talks with the individuals actually responsible for administering these welfare programs, they will tell you it isn’t difficult to figure out who the drug abusers are.
One ugly example of how these welfare payments are spent is on drugs and alcohol. In bad cases parents are abusing taxpayer good will on a bad habit that is otherwise meant for hungry children, but in the worst instances pregnant “mothers” who receive the benefits are choosing a bad habit over their child. In the data we have from 2010, there averaged around 85,000 individuals on TANF every month. None of these individuals were tested for illegal drugs as a condition of receiving their money. However, most people can’t get a job today without taking a drug test, yet those who would live off of the work of others are not made to take this same test – it is simply ridiculous.
In addition, numbers from (FY 2008) indicate that only 14.9% of Missouri families receiving TANF welfare payments are participating in some form of work. While there’s no way to know if drug-testing is part of this “work” – it probably isn’t. Even if all of these individuals are drug-tested as part of their work, it is still a very small minority that are tested. Simply put, we can do better and we should do better. If we are going to decide to give assistance to needy children and families there must be some accountability to the taxpayers. Opponents criticized this proposal because they said it lacked compassion and was irresponsible. I feel like one of our greatest responsibilities is to taxpayers and not addressing this issue is abusing the compassion of all those Missourians whose hard earned dollars are helping these families get by. Besides, how is enabling drug abusers with welfare money compassionate to these innocent children?
It is time we took a stand and in the Missouri House of Representatives we have taken the first step. Please join me in supporting HB 73 as it moves to the Senate and hopefully lands on the Governor’s desk for approval. As always, feel free to contact me at (573) 751-4285 or Casey.Guernsey@house.mo.gov. I look forward to your thoughts.
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