Take the recent comments on welfare reform by Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, the two Republicans candidates for governor. Both claim that one key to eliminating our $20 billion state budget deficit is to slash welfare benefits and crack down on recipients who aren't working, mostly single mothers with small children. Still, when the unemployment rate is over 12 percent and people with master's degrees are working at Starbucks, there's something unseemly about two ultrarich ex-CEOs berating single mothers with little education and no skills for dragging down the state because they can't find jobs. Poizner and Whitman are spending millions of their personal fortunes to convince us that they have fresh, new ideas that will restore our crumbling state to its former glory. Here in California, we transformed the old welfare system, which paid folks not to work indefinitely, into a new system with time limits and work requirements, along with child care and job training to help single parents go to work. The other half is spent on job training, study grants, child care and other assistance that helps those poor mothers get into the job market and end the cycle of poverty. read more

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