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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.

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State Senate to consider four-year welfare limit

By Eartha Jane Melzer | 07.12.11 | 11:25 am

Benefits for some poor Michigan families could end as soon as October if the Senate approves the four year lifetime welfare limit that was passed by the House in May.

“It’s good to have a safety net,” House sponsor Ken Horn (R-Frankenmuth) told the
Saginaw News, “but it shouldn’t be a lifestyle.”

“Even if they can’t find a job, we would like for them to create one. That’s the American dream,” he said.

Horn said his bill will enhance funding for job training programs.

Critics say that additional job training won’t help people find work if no one is hiring and that Horn doesn’t understand that barriers such as family responsibilities and disability make it difficult for some to access job training programs.

Some say eliminating welfare benefits will trigger new problems.

“I’m scared that the crime will go up because people will do whatever they have to do to provide for their families,” Sparkle S. Williams, an unemployed mom in Saginaw, told the News. “Dropout rate will rise, kids will act out in school because they will be teased because they are already poor, but now they are going to really be poor. Nobody thinks about that.”

The Senate is expected to take up this legislation on Wednesday.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    Cannot keep up the giveaways forever.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5Y5IZULFFTYQY4SYVYGNMI5QUU wolffsongg

    Create a job? Entrepreneurship? Really? In a time of an economic downturn, when a lot of people have been out of work for well over 99 weeks? I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but the American Dream doesn’t work for most people. What jobs are in this training program? Are they geared toward the educational level of the people involved in the programs? Will people be sent back to school, if they don’t have adequate education? Oh. I forgot. Our Republican controlled state government cut education.

    I worked hard for many, many years. So have lots of the folks on welfare. It was the last resort for many of them. I know from sitting in the dignity stripping, waiting room and talking to them. I don’t have children but do know that parents do what they have to do to keep food in their kids mouths, clothes on their back and a roof over their heads. Not everyone, in fact very few, on welfare are druggies or cheats who don’t want to work. Many can’t find work and haven’t been able to for a long time. In this economy, it may even be longer. A jobless rate that is high due to out of work government workers too by the way. This is their life line to staying alive.

    I’m currently on SSI disability. It’s a lifetime disability. My SSI is supplemented by the state with a monthly $14.00. That might not sound like a lot to some. However, it is to me. (I’m assuming I’m included in the new restrictions) I imagine it is like gold to some people that will/could be cut-off.  Really like gold to parents. (Of course, they probably get more than me but still not the fortune most people assume) I wish some people (Especially Rep. Kenneth B. Horn), who think nothing of spending $14.00 a day on something that could be considered frivolous, would experience, if only for a day, what it’s like to have to consider what that $14.00 “needs” to be spent on for the whole month.

  • Anonymous

    This might be a good idea with some restrictions.  If you are young and healthy and are just staying home and having babies to get welfare, you should be expected to work ….. of course all of this could be stopped if you were required to do some work any work (animal shelter, picking up trash etc.), those who could work, wouldn’t want t do it for the small amount of welfare and might move on.  On the other hand, elderly and TRULY disabled people, need exemptions.  Our elderly need more help………. The only other thing that would solve the ENTIRE problem is to stop handing out ANYTHING to illegal aliens …. no medical, no food stamps, no housing and no schooling for their anchor babies, the billions and billions a year saved would go a long way …..if you don’t believe me go to Numbers USA and check out some of what it is costing us every single day for these criminals.  Not a tomato in the world worth the bottom line.

  • Anonymous

    I struggle from paycheck to paycheck and sure do wish it was easier for my family and I but I do NOT expect that the wealthy should give me a handout just because they have it. Whether they got it easily from a wealthy family member or worked their a$$ off to get where they are, it is their money and I have no business getting any of it. If they choose to spread the wealth on their own…then great..otherwise leave them alone! 
    I believe that the public assistance should go to the families who DO work and are still having trouble, that is who needs it. Quit handing out all our hard earned dollars to slugs that are a consistent drain on society.
    I can’t afford to go pick up my glasses so they sit at the eye doctors office not doing me a bit of good, while my tax dollars paid for the glasses of a 20 year old girl who lost parental rights of 2 children and just popped out another one the other day. Guess who paid for that? 
    Guess who’s taking care of one of the children she wouldn’t take care of and lost?? My 25 year old single son (child is NOT his) who is working full time at $10 per hour and trying to pay all his bills.
    For the first 2 years he was taking care of this child, she was collecting the welfare $$ for him and he never saw a dime of it.
    His car quit at the same time his furnace quit working back in January and he called DHS to see if he could get some kind of help to fix his vehicle &/or furnace and guess what the answer was? A BIG FAT NO…but let’s send more money to the deadbeat girl on welfare who’s only purpose on the earth is to procreate and keep popping out children into the system for all of the working society to pay for.
    Never mind that if his car isn’t working, he can’t get to work and could lose his job. Then how would he keep paying her way in life? Let alone his own and the little boy he saved from the system??????
    The whole thing infuriates me and I can’t even wrap my head around it all. 
    Why can’t these “people” be made to get their tubes tied??? Because it would infringe on their “rights”. What about our rights? What about the poor babies rights that they keep producing?
    Oh Yeah, the children have no rights until they are actually born.  So, this girl could feasibly have a baby every year for the next 20 to 25 years and there is nothing anyone can do to stop her. 
    Yes, something needs to be done and it needs to be done NOW. The system is broken and we the people are tired of paying the way for the bottom feeders that are too lazy to earn their own way in life.
     

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