It Takes a Taxpayer: LA County suggests paying parents to take care of their own children…

Just when you thought California couldn’t get any farther out there in LALA land…

LAT:

With steep state budget cuts under debate in Sacramento, Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to push for changes to CalWorks and other government aid programs they said would save nearly $270 million.

Included in their suggestions is a novel proposal: Put unemployed parents to work caring for their own children. Parents now receiving assistance must attend job training and search for work. While they fulfill those requirements, they are eligible for subsidized child care, which typically costs the state about $500 a month per child in L.A. County.

The parents of children under age 1 may stay home and still receive benefits. Now, county officials propose expanding that to parents who have one child under age 2 or two children under age 6. Monthly job training and child-care costs for such parents often exceed their welfare check, Santana said.

In Los Angeles County, 8,000 households with more than one child under age 6 receive CalWorks-subsidized child care, according to the county’s department of social services. If adopted, county officials estimate the proposal — intended to counter Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s threat to eliminate CalWorks — could save the state $140 million this fiscal year.

Well now I’ve heard it all. We went without in order to have one of us home when the kids were little. No new car, no vacations for a few years. It was more important to us to have one of us home when the kids were small. Inflation being what it is we simply went without.

Apparently, LA doesnt think it takes a village, LA thinks it takes a taxpayer or two or three million, to pay parents to stay home and care for their own children. Unreal.

June 18, 2009. Tags: CA daycare, CA Taxes, California budget crisis, California welfare, CalWorks, Economy, Harry Chapin. Economy, Music, Politics. Comments off.