Re-Electing Family-Hating Professional Politician Jeff Flake Means Bigger Budget Deficits and Fewer Jobs for American Workers

At Newsweek's blog The Gaggle, Andrew Romano points out why re-electing family-hating professional politician Jeff Flake and his GOP cronies will just make things a lot worse in the country that crumbs like Flake seemed to determined to destroy:

Nothing is more important to Republican politicians these days than jobs and the deficit—at least according to Republican politicians. As House Minority Leader John Boehner put it in a "major economic address" on Tuesday, President Obama is "doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created" while refusing to do anything at all "about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy." Elect Republicans in November, Boehner assured his audience, and we will put an end to this insanity.

There's only one problem with Boehner's message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won't actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.

The math is pretty straightforward. Let's start with the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama's stimulus plan is projected to increase budget deficits over the next decade by $814 billion. That's a big number. But Republicans opposed the legislation refused to provide an alternative, and now insist that it's been a total failure. So let's be generous and subtract it from their side of the equation. The Obama deficit: $814 billion. The GOP deficit: $0.

Next up is health-care reform. Obama passed it; Republicans want to repeal it "lock, stock, and barrel." The reason, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained in July, is that "we all know that it's going to increase the deficit." Unfortunately for the GOP, though, nonpartisan experts tend to disagree. Just this Tuesday, for example, the CBO released a letter saying that Obama's health-care-reform legislation would "reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years,” while repealing the law would generate "an increase in deficits ... of $455 billion ... over that [same] period." Factor those figures into the equation and the Obama deficit falls to $784 billion. The GOP deficit, meanwhile, rises to $455 billion. Getting warmer.

The final piece of the puzzle is the Bush tax cuts. Obama wants to extend them for the 95 percent of taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year; Republicans want to extend them for everybody. How will these extensions affect the deficit? Glad you asked. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, "the Democratic proposal would add about $3 trillion to the deficit during the next decade, while the GOP plan would cost $3.7 trillion." That brings the total Obama deficit to $3.784 trillion over 10 years, and its GOP counterpart to—drumroll, please—$4.155 trillion.

That's right. Even if we assume that the Republicans would've spent $0 to stimulate the economy in the wake of the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression—an unlikely scenario, given the very real risks of inaction—their proposed policies would still produce a deficit $371 billion larger than President Obama's.

(Or $335 billion; Boehner also says he'd like to freeze nondefense discretionary spending at 2008 levels, which would save a grand total of $36 billion.)

On jobs, it's a similar story. So far, Republicans have only said they'd do—or that they would've done—two large-scale things the Democrats haven't: (1) scrap the stimulus, and (2) extend the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 so as not to (in Boehner's words) "impose job-killing tax hikes on families and small businesses."

How would these measures affect employment? Regarding the stimulus, the answer is pretty clear. In a report out this week, the CBO estimates that between 1.4 million and 3.3 million fewer people would be employed right now if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had never made it through Congress. Split the difference, and the pro-stimulus Obama moves ahead of the anti-stimulus GOP by about 2.35 million jobs. (A more dramatic estimate by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi [a McCain 2008 adviser] puts the number at 2.7 million, but we'll stick with the CBO stats for now.)

The effect of tax cuts on job creation is a little trickier to tally. Extending all of them, according to the CBO, would lower unemployment by 0.3 to 0.8 percent over the next year or so; extending them solely for people making less than $250,000 would produce a somewhat smaller effect, for a difference of roughly 200,000 to 500,000 people. The problem, as economist William G. Gale of the Brookings Institution has noted, is that "of 11 potential stimulus policies the CBO recently examined, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts ties for lowest bang for the buck." In fact, he continues, "letting the high-income tax cuts expire and using the money for aid to the states, extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, [or] tax credits favoring job creation ... would have about three times the impact ... as continuing the Bush tax cuts."

In addition, it's unlikely that extending the cuts for the richest Americans would have much of an effect on small-business hiring, which is a claim that Republicans make with some regularity. Why? Because of the taxpayers that report running small businesses on their taxes, only 2 percent fall into the top two income brackets.* The other 98 percent of small-business owners make less than $250,000 a year and wouldn't pay higher taxes under Obama's plan.

History isn't on the GOP's side, either. If keeping the top marginal tax rate at 35 percent—the rate under Bush, and the rate that Republicans are fighting to preserve—spurs so much hiring, why didn't America experience any job growth at all during Bush's time in office? And if a top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent—the rate under Bill Clinton, and the rate that Democrats are fighting to restore—is such a job killer, why did payrolls grow by 20 percent during the 1990s?

The implication here isn't that higher tax rates equal more jobs. Far from it. But there's simply no evidence, either in the history books or the latest projections, to suggest that extending all of the Bush tax cuts would provide an employment boost large enough to offset the number of jobs that would've been lost if the GOP had succeeded in blocking the stimulus—let alone lasting enough to justify adding another $700 billion to the deficit.

The bottom line, then, is that recent GOP proposals would produce fewer jobs and far larger deficits than the plans Obama has already passed or currently wants to pass.

Why Does Jeff Flake Hate This Good Christian Woman?

Family-hating Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake doesn't believe unemployment compensation benefits should exist. He's on record as saying, along with Senator John Kyl, as saying they deter people from looking for work. He's voted over seventeen times against expanding benefits. In fact, Jeff Flake has called for the repeal of the New Deal law that created unemployment insurance for the jobless.

Jeff Flake has contempt for the unemployed citizens of Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Apache Junction and Queen Creek. He has contempt for all those jobless people who are suffering in America.

Tomorrow's New York Times has a story by Michael Luo on one such person, the kind of woman Jeff Flake has contempt for:

CARLISLE, Ky. — In her well-thumbed, leather-bound Bible, Terri Sadler recently highlighted in bright pink a passage in the Gospel of Matthew.

Terri Sadler of Carlisle, Ky., listening to C-Span for news of Senate action on an extension of federal unem- ployment benefits. In it, Jesus urges his followers not to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

But Ms. Sadler’s tightening throat and halting breath when she tries to read the words aloud make it clear that she is having trouble mustering enough faith to follow them.

Ms. Sadler, who lost her job at an automotive parts plant in October 2008, learned last month that her unemployment insurance had been cut off. She is one of an estimated 2.1 million Americans whose benefits have expired and who are waiting for an end to an impasse that has lasted months in the Senate over extending the payments once more to the long-term unemployed.

Times have changed politically, however, and opposition is growing in Washington and abroad to deficit-bloating government spending, even for those who are hurting.

For Ms. Sadler, and many like her, each passing day has become an excruciating countdown of debts and deadlines.

“I’m basically applying for everything, trying to get something,” said Ms. Sadler, 52, who since early June has not received an unemployment check, which used to be about $388 a week before taxes. “If I don’t, I’m going to lose everything. I’m not going to have a roof over my head. I’m just going to have to walk away with what I have on my back, and my dog.”

She is down to $44 in her purse and a quarter-tank of gas. She says she has exhausted the help of family and friends.

Members of her tiny Baptist church just up the road from her cramped mobile home pooled their money on Sunday to come up with her car payment and insurance. A county ministerial association paid her water bill. A nonprofit organization covered her last two electric bills.

A notepad on her refrigerator lists the other outstanding bills: $102 cellphone, $79 cable and Internet, which she relies on for job-hunting; $15 for her credit card; and $30 for an end table she had bought on layaway. Not listed was $275 for her rent this month, which she still owes.

Every morning, after Ms. Sadler takes her dog out and turns on the coffee maker, she switches on the television to C-Span. Then she cracks open her laptop to resume a job hunt that has become frantic.

But as she has run low on money, her search has also become increasingly circumscribed. She used to drive to drop off résumés with businesses; now she is mostly limited to scanning online listings.

Ms. Sadler eagerly tuned in to C-Span last Monday, mistakenly believing that Senate Democrats returning from recess would quickly take up the unemployment insurance extension. But they remain a vote short of being able to block a Republican filibuster, forcing them to wait for Carte Goodwin, the successor to Senator Robert C. Byrd, who died last month, to be sworn in. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said the vote on an extension would occur on Tuesday.

The measure is now expected to pass, but advocates for unemployment insurance are hardly declaring victory yet. Fears about the country’s skyrocketing deficit, which are at the heart of Republican objections, have gained growing prevalence, even with moderate Democrats. Economic arguments that additional government spending is needed to spur the economy have been swamped.

Some Republican politicians [like Jeff Flake, John Kyl, et al.] have argued that continuing to extend unemployment benefits offers a disincentive for the jobless to find work. Supporters of unemployment insurance counter that job openings remain in short supply.

Ms. Sadler estimates that she used to spend six hours a day searching for work; now it is at least double amount of time.

“There’s been times I’ve had to make myself stop looking for jobs because it was driving me nuts,” said Ms. Sadler, who admitted that she had contemplated suicide.

Every day has become a tense scramble, highlighting just how thin the governmental safety net for the jobless becomes beyond unemployment benefits. After Ms. Sadler was cut off from jobless benefits, she qualified for $200 a month in food stamps, but food stamps do not pay her bills, nor do they cover other necessities.

She recently wrote to Tom’s of Maine, because she uses the company’s toothpaste, mouthwash and deodorant, asking whether it might be able to donate some products to her. But she was informed that the company usually gives only to nonprofit organizations.

Ms. Sadler lives alone here in this small town in the northern part of the state, where Amish are sometimes spotted heading down the main road with horse and buggy. She has only her 2-year-old dog, Tootie-muffin, for company.

Before she lost her job, she had enrolled in community college to study medical billing and coding. She finished the program in May, but most of the medical billing jobs she has applied for require experience. The framed certificate, and another one for data entry, on her bedroom wall are just decorations at this point.

How she landed in this predicament is a product of both mistakes she made and forces beyond her control. She dropped out of high school and had her daughter, Chastity, at age 15. She started working in factories soon after and eventually earned her G.E.D. She had managed to scratch out a relatively comfortable life before she lost her job, making $14.65 an hour at Vuteq, in Georgetown, Ky., a company that makes sun roofs and windshields for Toyota.

But she never accumulated much savings, besides $3,000 she had socked away in a 401(k) account, which she quickly ran through. She has always had a thing for Ford Mustangs and bought a used red one in 2006 that she now admits was a bad decision.

She filed for bankruptcy in March 2009 and was allowed to keep her car on a reduced payment schedule, but she was barred from selling it.

After moving several times, she finally found her mobile home here, with cheap green siding and outdated wood paneling, at a monthly rent she could afford on unemployment insurance.

She had used up 79 weeks of benefits but was expecting an additional 20 weeks under the extended federal program.

On Tuesday, Ms. Sadler scored just her third interview since 2008, for a $7.50-an-hour job at a check-cashing business that is an hour’s drive from her home. It would have paid less than she received on unemployment benefits and left her still unable to cover her expenses, but she had little choice.

It took all her willpower not to reach across the table to shake her interviewer and beg for a chance. The company said she would know by Thursday, but as of Friday she had not heard back.

* * *
From Rebecca Schneider, Democratic candidate in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District:

Before the bill even got to the Senate, YOUR Congressman (Jeff Flake) voted to cut unemployment benefits to the thousands of men and women who can't find work.

This vote was not only fiscally irresponsible, but downright wrong!

The Rebecca Schneider for Congress campaign will be staging a protest in front of Jeff Flake's Mesa Office. We will be wearing cardboard barrels, since Mr. Flake doesn't seem to care if his constituents lose their last remaining lifeline and self respect.

Join us on Wednesday, July 21th from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m., 1640 S. Stapley Drive, Mesa 85204.

Come dressed in grungy T-shirt and shorts. Barrels will be provided on site.

We urge you to join Rebecca Schneider's demonstration if you can.

Big Oil's Congressional Lackey Jeff Flake: Guilty of Criminal Neglect in Causing the Gulf Oil Spill

In his few public statements on the horrendous environmental disaster and human tragedy of the Gulf oil spill, Arizona's Sixth Congressional District's weaselly Rep. Jeff Flake has said nothing but place the blame elsewhere - mostly on the Obama administration.

This is typical of Flake, a fanatic laissez-faire corporate lackey whose million-dollar-plus campaign warchest has made him so invincible politically that he exudes arrogance on an hourly basis. The thousands upon thousands of dollars he has taken in from oil companies and related corporate PACs, combined with his outdated, unshaken faith in a dead ideology he gives more allegiance to than he does to his East Valley constituents, led to Flake's role in causing the BP oil spill.

In 2005, despite unfairly high oil prices and declarations from President Bush that no more incentives were needed to encourage more offshore drilling, Jeff Flake strongly supported reducing the cut of proceeds government could collect on oil and gas drilling in deep waters. (In this, of course, Flake added to the federal budget deficit he hypocritically claims to be so concerned about - at least when he's near a reporter or TV camera.)

At the same time that Jeff Flake called for new drilling incentives that even President Bush said were unnecessary, he fought to gut government oversight - in his crazy belief that no government is always better than any government. Seven times since his arrival in Congress in January 2003, Jeff Flake voted to reduce regulatory staffing levels by more than 15 percent - despite more complex deep-water operations and concerns voiced by the Interior Department.

It's not as if Jeff Flake didn't know the risks he was taking with people's lives and livelihoods and the Gulf ecosystem. Congress's own research arm repeatedly cited a 2004 Coast Guard study find that its "oil spill response personnel did not appear to have even a basic knowledge of the equipment required to support salvage or spill clean-up operations."

Nevertheless, Jeff Flake repeatedly - deliberately - failed to act to ensure adequate oversight of offshore drilling operations.

He cannot escape blame for this disaster. Yes, BP certainly was reckless, greedy and negligent, but the company couldn't have done it without the complicity of its congressional cheerleader Jeff Flake.

Now Congress needs to immediately pass legislation to direct all future royalties to the Treasury Department, thereby reducing the incentives for a venal career politician like Jeff Flake to use new proceeds as a piggy bank.

Also, Congress needs to mandate that in the future, any legislative action leading to an increase in oil production also creates a concomitant increase in regulatory oversight.

If he were a real man, Jeff Flake would step forward and admit his own role in undermining offshore safety and encouraging risky drilling - and then do something as a congressman to make sure disasters like the Gulf oil spill don't happen again.

Jeff Flake: Out of step. Out of control. Out of his fucking mind.

Arizona's Compassion-less Clueless Camera-Hoggin' Congressman Jeff Flake Blocks Economic Recovery - But Here's How to Fight This Entrenched Politician

How does a regular little guy fight entrenched power?

Arizona's Sixth Congressional District has a career politician Congressman, the fanatic Jeff Flake, who's standing in the way of full economic recovery and laughing in the faces of working people in the East Valley and all over America.

With his assaults on labor and working families, his outlandishly regressive tax policies and his slavish devotion to corporate power, this captive of K Street lobbyists Flake is blocking any attempts by the federal government to stop this onerous economic Great Recession.

In fact, he's happy about it. It's laissez-faire capitalism at its finest, says the foolish or fiendish Flake. Now his starve-the-beast philosophy of fiscal austerity and do-nothingism has spread, and we can't do any more stimulus or even help those who are under water, unemployed or struggling to pay bills like so many of us in the East Valley.

But here are three suggestions to go around our career-politician congressman:

First, Congress should grant workers a temporary holiday from the forced savings program known as Social Security.

To stimulate the economy now with no long-term increase in government debt, Congress should therefore temporarily exempt a portion of wages from the Social Security taxes imposed on workers; at the same time, those exempted wages would not be credited in computing that worker’s future retirement benefits.

For example, a 40-year-old earning $50,000 and paying annual Social Security taxes of about $3,000 could see those taxes cut to about $2,000. The added $1,000 in his paycheck, along with similar amounts for other workers, could be a huge stimulus to the economy.

In the future, of course, there would be a price to pay: the growth in that worker’s retirement benefits would be slightly reduced — much as if he had taken off four months without pay.

But the emphasis should be on “slightly.” Because benefits are typically paid over decades, the cost of a temporary $1,000 tax cut would be spread over many years; it could amount to a reduction in annual pension benefits of less than $100. The holiday could even be limited to workers under the age of 55, to allow plenty of time for them to salt away a few extra dollars for retirement once the economy improves.

Best of all, the costs and benefits would be matched to each worker. Those who get a pickup today would pay it back later on. This way, the Keynesians would get their stimulus, and the deficit hawks [like the predatory oddbird Jeff Flake] could sleep better at night.

Second, we need to block heartless, heedless, headless politicians like Jeff Flake from denying those who can't find jobs some relief.

Congress should restore the automatic triggers in unemployment compensation from the 1970s before nuts like Flake got in charge of the government (and they won't let go now, thirty years later!)

In 1970, Congress passed the Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Act, which established an automatic trigger: whenever unemployment increased to a certain point at a national or a state level, benefits were extended by 13 weeks.

The costs of these benefits were shared by the states, which paid them out of their regular unemployment insurance accounts, and the federal government, which increased taxes by about $8 per worker.

In the ’80s and ’90s, however, Congress diminished the effectiveness of the program by eliminating the national trigger, raising the state triggers and altering the trigger calculations in such a way that they hardly ever took effect

[Now], whenever a state’s total unemployment rate rises above 6.5 percent or jobless claims increase by more than 20 percent, benefits should be offered for an additional 20 or more weeks. This program should be fully financed by the federal government, thereby alleviating states’ burden during the recession.

An automatic trigger would provide a tailored response to those states with the worst labor markets and eliminate the need for Congress to revisit this issue every few months. Most important, we could reduce some of the uncertainty for the jobless.

Finally, Congress should allow small businesses to speed up the rate at which they can write off depreciating assets. Doing so would save employers money and spur entrepreneurial risk-taking, without increasing the national debt.

True, in the short term the government would lose tax revenue. But it is the same amount the government would lose by allowing the write-off anyway, just over a shorter period of time.

And there could be a fee for anyone using the accelerated schedule, equal to the interest the government would pay on the money it needed to borrow to cover its temporarily lost revenue.

Of course, Congress would want to make sure companies put their savings into new investments. To that end, it could devise a system for rewarding entrepreneurs based on the number of jobs per dollar depreciation created or the environmental worthiness of the project. And the accelerated write-off could be adjusted for specific assets across numerous industries, spurring development in areas where the public can most benefit, from new power plants to hospitals and nursing homes.

The tough part would be devising regulations and administering such a program. Politics is bound to intrude, though an independent review panel could help keep undue influence at bay.

Nevertheless, the reward for getting this policy right would be great — for government, investors, creditors and taxpayers — and it would encourage entrepreneurial enthusiasm throughout the economy.

With a little innovation and a lot of hard work (something our tropical-isle-vacationing congressman knows nothing about),

even before the voters boot out fishy fanatics like Jeff Flake, we can end this recession and put Arizona's working families in a better place.

House Passes FHA Reform Act to 'Rebuild the American Dream of Homeownership' 406-4 with Family-Hating Fanatic Jeff Flake Voting No

Today, Arizona's family-hating Congressman Jeff Flake was one of only four U.S. House members to vote against House Resolution (HR) 5074, the FHA Reform Act, to help families realize the dream of homeownership, protect Americans from mortgage fraud and save taxpayers money. The bill passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 406-4, with AZ-06's oddball Jeff Flake, as usual, being one of a tiny minority of weirdo legislators in either party to try to block legislation helping American families.

In addition to strengthening the FHA's capital base by raising mortgage insurance premiums, the bill aims to crack down on FHA-approved lenders. For example, the bill grants FHA the authority to terminate a lender's approval on a national basis due to the performance of regional branches.

The final version of the bill includes "reforms that will rebuild the American dream of homeownership and reduce federal spending by $2.5 billion," House Democrats said in a statement, adding that the bill "protects Americans from mortgage fraud and holds the FHA accountable by improving its internal reporting systems and providing greater transparency to the public and Congress."

Industry groups are already embracing the bill's aims to maintain the availability of financing in the mortgage market. "The reforms contained in this bill will help stabilize FHA's finances by allowing the agency to raise its annual premiums and better take corrective action against lenders who are putting the program at risk," said Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) chairman Robert Story Jr, in an e-mail.

"Importantly, the bill also contains provisions to increase FHA's multifamily loan limits for elevator buildings and in extremely high cost areas," Story added. "One of MBA's top legislative priorities, increasing the multifamily limits in this way will help lenders finance the construction and refurbishment of much-needed affordable rental housing in many urban areas of this country."

Jeff Flake, of course, hates American families and if re-elected, will continue to block all efforts to improve affordability for both homeowners and renters. The laissez-faire free-market fanatic ideologue,

opposed here by 165 of his Republican colleagues, has made no secret of his desire to destroy the American family. Anti-family forces are putting thousands of dollars behind his current campaign for another term in Congress.

Veteran-Hating Rep. Jeff Flake One of Only Two House Members to Oppose Bill to Help Vets

Yesterday H.R. 5145, the Assuring Quality Care for Veterans Act, was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 413-2. Who was one of the two congressmen opposing quality medical care for the men and women who fought to protect our country? The unpatriotic Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona's Sixth Congressional District.

This is not the first time veteran-hating Jeff Flake has shown his contempt for patriotic servicemembers. He must be replaced in November by someone who understands that we need to keep our promise to the men and women who have served America.

Federal Subsidies for Child Care for Working Mothers Must Be Increased; Now, Welfare Reform in Arizona Only a Broken Promise

Today's New York Times has a lead story, set in Tucson, on how a lack of funding has resulted in "swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades," especially in states like Arizona:

Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care.

Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.

Ms. Wallace abhors the thought of going on cash assistance, a station she associates with lazy people who con the system. Yet this has become the only practical route toward child care.

So, on a recent afternoon, she waited in a crush of beleaguered people to submit the necessary paperwork. Her effort to avoid welfare through work has brought her to welfare’s door.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. “I fall back to — I can’t say ‘being a lowlife’ — but being like the typical person living off the government. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to use this as a backbone, so I can develop my own backbone.”

As the American social safety net absorbs its greatest challenge since the Great Depression, state budget cuts are weakening crucial components. Subsidized child care — financed by federal and state governments — is a conspicuous example.

“We’re really reneging on a commitment and a promise that we made to families,” said Patty Siegel, executive director of the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, an advocacy organization. “You can’t expect a family with young children to get on their feet and get jobs without child care.”

Here in Tucson — a city of roughly 500,000 people, sprawling across a parched valley dotted by cactus — Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old single mother, once had subsidized child care. That enabled her to work at Target, where she earned about $8 an hour. She paid $1.50 a day for her 3-year-old daughter, Wren, to stay at a child care center. The state picked up the rest.

She was aiming to resume college and then find a higher-paying job. But in December, she missed by a day the deadline to extend her subsidy. When she went to the state Department of Economic Security to submit new paperwork, she learned that all new applicants were landing on a waiting list.

Ms. Smith sought help from Wren’s father to look after their daughter. But he had his own job delivering pizza, limiting his availability.

“Some days, I’d just have to call in sick,” she said.

By March, she had missed so many days that Target put her on a leave of absence, telling her to come back after securing stable child care, she said.

Without the state program, she sees no viable options.

She, too, is contemplating going on welfare.

“It’s a blow to my own self-image and self-worth as a person who can take care of myself,” she says. “I’m totally able, physically and intellectually, to continue working. But I can’t work without child care, and I can’t afford child care without work" . . .

At least nine states, including Illinois and Indiana, used increased federal aid through the stimulus package to begin offering child care support to parents looking for work. Thus they expanded the case loads of such programs or lengthened the duration of the benefits, according to data compiled by the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group in Washington.

But at least nine other states, including Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina, have cut access to subsidized child care programs or the amounts they pay. . .

In Arizona last year, stimulus funds prevented budget cuts that would have eliminated care for 15,000 eligible children. But as the budget crisis has ground on, the state has added names of eligible children to the wait list, a term that social service agencies deride as a euphemism.

“It’s really a turn-away list,” says Bruce Liggett, executive director of the Arizona Child Care Association, a Phoenix-based advocacy group. “The program has been shut down.”

For Mr. Liggett, this amounts to a bitter turn. In the mid-1990s, he was a deputy director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, where he helped put in place the new welfare-to-work program.

“We’ve seen devastating cuts,” he says. “For those families working to stay off welfare, we’re denying help. Welfare reform in Arizona is certainly a broken promise."

Family-hating Rep. Jeff Flake has never lifted a finger for Arizona's working families and never will; it's against his fanatical laissez-faire anti-government principles.

He must be replaced with someone who will make sure proper funding for child care subsidies is restored so that Arizona's moms and dads can get back to work and support their families.