The 2022 election season is fully underway, which means voters face a bombardment of misleading or flatly false statements each day.
The latest example comes from Topeka. House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins claims Gov. Laura Kelly has waived work requirements for Kansans who use the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known as TANF. That’s not the case.
Hawkins’ claim, like almost everything he says, is politically motivated, aimed at boosting Republican chances at the polls.
But it’s more than that. By singling out a program that helps the poorest Kansans, Hawkins and his colleagues continue their sorry history of trying to intimidate those who need public assistance, a project that began decades ago.
The refusal to expand Medicaid is part of this strategy. It’s a foundational myth for the modern GOP: the belief that someone, somewhere, somehow, is getting something for nothing, or that families prefer welfare to work.
Hawkins’ effort is sad and amoral, and must be rejected where it counts, at the polls.
The story begins in September, when the Kelly administration announced plans to streamline the TANF process. The Department for Children and Families said it wanted to speed up TANF applications because the end of federal unemployment benefits might mean more families needed help.
A self-assessment form was suspended, for example, through the end of the year. So was the online “work program orientation.” Nothing in the policy memo suspends the actual work...
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