UPDATE:I’ve just published a new blog post – MORE ON STACEY CAMPFIELD’S PLAN TO HAVE POOR CHILDREN PAY THE RENT
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UPDATE to my original post from earlier today:

Upon closer read, Mr. Campfield’s proposed legislation does not pull only food assistance. What Mr. Campfield actually wants to do is take away the minimal and time-limited subsidy that struggling Tennessee mothers and fathers can depend on during the hardest of hard times to pay not only for food, but also for other non-food necessities such as heat, water, transportation and shoes for their kids.

Specifically, he wants to yank Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF – called “Families First” in our state) when, per the language in his legislation, children fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school.” And in case you are wondering how Mr. Campfield intends to define “satisfactory progress in school ” for purposes of enforcement of his proposed law, he states that:

If your child is failing their classes, if your child is not showing up to school, if your child has quit school. That is unacceptable.

(Unfortunately, the irony of the fact that Mr. Campfield’s own writing in explaining his legislation falls below the proficiency expectations for a standard 10th grade English essay can’t be left unmentioned. In general, I try to never nitpick the grammar or punctuation in other people’s blog posts. I certainly make my own writing mistakes when I blog – all the time. “Just because” criticism of this type is unkind and rude, in my view. However, in the context of what Mr. Campfield is blogging about, I believe that pointing this out is fair and appropriate.)

For clarity, here is a description of the TANF program targeted by Mr. Campfield, published on the website of the state of Tennessee’s Department of Human Services:

Families First provides temporary cash benefits to families who have children, and are experiencing financial difficulties. These benefits are time-limited to 60 months in a participant’s lifetime.

The Families First program emphasizes work, training, and personal responsibility. To be eligible for the program, participants must agree to follow a Personal Responsibility Plan (PRP). As part of the PRP, the participant agrees to keep immunizations and health checks up to date for their children, keep their children in school, co-operate with Child Support Services to establish paternity, and participate in a work/training program for at least 30 hours per week.

Unless a participant is exempt from the 30-hour work requirement, he/she will develop, with the assistance of a work activity contractor, an individualized career plan (ICP). This plan is based on the participant’s needs and skills. The ultimate goal of the ICP is to provide a work and training guide that will result in financial independence for the family.

Clearly, TANF recipients are already required to do all they reasonably can to be sure that their kids do – as Mr. Campfield’s legislation states – “maintain satisfactory progress in school.” So what is the point of Mr. Campfield’s bill? Did he even read the current requirements for Tennessee TANF recipients before wasting our tax dollars to write and propose this junk legislation? It certainly appears not.

Additionally, if Mr. Campfield’s goal with his proposed legislation is, as he wrote on his blog today to “break the cycle of poverty,” it’s hard to imagine how he thinks removing low-income adults from accountability to TANF’s remarkably stringent work and parenting requirements will support that goal.

Again, one has to question whether Mr. Campfield ever took the time to review the specifics of this federal/state program before he created this latest piece of legislative offal. Or maybe he read it but didn’t understand what he was reading. And I’m not sure which is worse.

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I wish very much that I were making this up. Or that I’m just doing a bad job trying to write absurd political headlines like the folks at The Onion.

Alas, it is true that Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield has now reached a low beyond which I wouldn’t have believed even he could sink – both as an elected official who continues to waste tax dollars with his continual “stunt” legislation, as well as a human being.

Mr. Campfield has introduced a new bill which slashes Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) payments for parents or caretakers of TANF recipients whose children fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school.

Mr. Campfield is an increasingly disturbing embarrassment to his party, his constituents, and to our state. Getting this man out of office for good in the next election has to be something that people of good conscience from both political parties work together to do. As a Democrat in heavily Republican East Tennessee, I will actively and publicly support the legitimate GOP candidate of good character who looks to have a reasonable shot at ousting Mr. Campfield, if that’s the best way to get the job done.
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PS: Mr. Campfield has his own blog, and he’s just published a new post there in which he enthusiastically rationalizes his latest cruel, ridiculous and bizarre legislative proposal. I don’t know if he accepts comments, but any of y’all with an opinion to share with him could at least try leaving one.

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UPDATE:I’ve just published a new blog post – MORE ON STACEY CAMPFIELD’S PLAN TO HAVE POOR CHILDREN PAY THE RENT