In a blow to leftists everywhere, Maine governor Paul le Page, the outspoken conservative who grew up the eldest of 18 children in an abusive environment, triggering him to run away at age 11 and spend two years on the streets before going on to run a successful business, has successfully reformed welfare in his state.
Le Page has been determined to reform welfare for years, making it a chief goal he articulated when he successfully ran for governor in 2010 and his reelection in 2014. In the fall of 2014, he delivered, changing the state’s welfare rules; in order to receive food-stamp benefits, able-bodied adults without children would have to hold a part-time job, join a job-training program or volunteer.
Bingo: in the last year, a shocking plunge occurred in the number of healthy adults without dependents receiving food stamps, from 13,589 to 1,206.
Mary Mayhew, the commissioner of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services, stated that the drop could be attributed to beneficiaries obtaining jobs or voluntarily refusing to meet the new requirements for food stamps,.
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill eased the work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP; which now boasts 45 million beneficiaries.
The next step in the Maine government’s attempts to reform welfare will include an asset test to determine if recipients truly deserve the benefits, according to Mayhew, thus checking to see if recipients owned luxury items that could be sold instead of relying on welfare. Other prospective changes could include barring the use of food stamps for buying candy or sugary soft drinks, and adding photo IDs on food stamp card to prevent the cards from being utilized as currency in drug trafficking.
Matthew Gagnon, head of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative think tank, said, “Now that they’re going to those simple reforms that were done 20 years ago, it’s really important to note how effective they’ve been, and how little we had to innovate in order to have an effect on the welfare culture here.”
Le Page’s outspokenness preceded Donald Trump’s by years; in 2010, running for governor, he asserted, “We came from behind because we have a message. We have a message that says: One, we’ve had enough of the federal government. We’ve had enough. Two, we’ve had enough of the state government. And No. 3, government should be working for the people, not the people working for the government. And as your governor, you’re gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying ‘Gov. LePage tells Obama to go to hell.’”
The feisty Le Page has been fiercely fighting Democrats in the state legislators, who have rejected bills reforming welfare, according to Maine.gov, including:
LD 1375: would have required an up-front work search for able-bodied Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applicants; would eliminate loopholes in the work requirement; ban out-of-state use of Maine TANF benefits; and prohibit the expenditure of cash welfare on alcohol, tobacco, gambling, bail, and tattoos;
LD 1407: would have given DHHS the authority to drug-test TANF applicants;
LD 1035: would have imposed a 9-month cap on General Assistance welfare
LD 1036: would have required the use of other benefits before GA
LD 1037: would have established a 180-day residency requirement for welfare benefits
LD 368: would have imposed a 5-year limit on GA to align with TANF.