Tiffany Bond  🦞 🇺🇸Verified account

The problem with work requirements is they often place a burden on people who literally cannot work to prove they are trying hard enough. Many have undiagnosed disability, massive childcare issues, seasonal employment, no work in close proximity, etc. #mepolitics

Do you want someone who has a disability to not eat? What about someone with borderline capacity? What if you live 30 miles from the closest town? What about a struggling single parent - or someone who has exhaustively tried to find childcare and cannot? #mepolitics

Side note - I could kill about 50 tweets with how hard it is to find reliable, functional child care in some parts of Maine, and even worse if you have temporary or irregularly scheduled work. I won't bore you, but it's no joke. #mepolitics

The trade off of perhaps some lazy person sneaking through is you demand a tremendous amount of energy with those who can least spare it for a program that is not a good return compared to working. The amount of frugal you have to be to survive is impressive. #mepolitics

Let's tackle the other policy of those delinquent on child support not being eligible for benefits....um, who are these people? I can think of very few situations where I have seen this occur. This sounds like a big headline for not a lot of impact. #mepolitics

I would guess there are very few people in this situation, and those who are really need the help. Off the top of my head, I can think of two situations where I have been in court and seen parents delinquent in support and also receiving food stamps. #mepolitics

The first one was someone struggling with massive undiagnosed mental health issues, actively trying to seek help but ineligible for healthcare..and unable to get a diagnosis. This person was sincerely trying to get help and get employed...should s/he starve? #mepolitics

The second situation I have seen was a parent of an older child where they had other young children in the home. Older child went to live with other parent, changing the $ dynamics. The parent was struggling and could not do it all with the young kids in the house. #mepolitics