This is Stacey Campfield's brilliant idea - to withhold welfare for poor families unless their kids make good grades. In effect, he wants to punish the entire family from babies to Grandma if just one of the kids is failing school, no matter what the reason. Can he spell I-D-I-O-T?
. . . if your kid is failing every single class because who knows what reason — unless you are a special needs child or something like that — we’re going to stop or cut back on the amount of straight cash payments you’re going to get.
Listen, I’m not expecting these kids to write the Magna Carta.
ABCs, 1-2-3s — I think any parent can just about do that.
We have classes for parents. We have after-school problems if kids are having problems. We have tutoring programs up the wazoo, we have everything you’d ever ask for except for parents that are engaged and involved.
~ Stacey Campfield on Fox News in January 2012
Personally, I want to see Stacey Campfield's Report Cards because I'm not sure he's qualified to participate in state government. Also he has no heart.
We’ve learned that on Monday a group of Nashville Reverends, Preachers, and Priests came to the office of each member of the Tennessee General Assembly to protest Sen. Campfield’s anti-poor agenda and the state's rejection of Obamacare. They dropped off two loafs of bread and 5 paper fish. Each fish had a different bible verse calling on the members to help the poor and fund health care. Nice work!
~ From a Facebook called "Recall TN State Senator Stacey Campfield"
UpDATE 2 ~ Campfield withdrew his bill, thank God, but not before this happened:
"I love when people use children as Props." ~ Stacey Campfield while running from and 8-year-old girl, Aamira Fetuga, then calling a man with the child a "Union Thug"
From Think Progress
As Campfield walked to the Senate chambers, he was presented with a petition of more than 2500 signatures collected by Clergy for Justice to protest the bill. The deliverer of the petition was an 8-year-old girl, Aamira Fetuga, whose mother, Rasheedat Fetuga, is the founder of a local child advocacy group.
As Aamira prepared to explain to Campfield why she was worried about his bill, Campfield dismissed her as a “prop” and hurried away, repeating over and over again, “Using children as props is shameful” as Aamira and her mother tried to talk to him.
Watch it [courtesy of Eric Patton and Clergy For Justice]:
UPDATE: Stacey Campfield has Withdrawn his Bill!!!
State Sen. Stacey Campfield dropped his bill to tie welfare benefits to grades for the year after meeting resistance from fellow Republicans on the Senate floor.
Campfield asked for his bill to be sent to a summer study committee before a vote could be held on the measure, which would have reduced welfare payments to families whose children are failing school. The move came after it appeared that the bill would fall short of passing.
The decision ended debate on one of the most controversial pieces of legislation before the Tennessee legislature.
A single mother with two children receives $185 dollars a month in TANF cash payments. That’s roughly $46 dollars a week, less than $7 a day. Your 30% reduction would cut that payment to just under $130 a month.
. . . Your legislation also ignores the very real educational impediments for students coming from impoverished households–like food and housing insecurity or financial and health care instability. And the truth is that poor people don’t hold the monopoly on bad parenting.
. . . And gentlemen–it’s your job as elected officials to encourage their achievement with policy that supports instead of shames.
~ Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC
"Study or Starve"
~ Martin Bashir on MSNBC
Let me see if I get this theory straight:
Little Billy is poor, and he’s not doing very well in school. I have an idea. What if we made him poorer and told his family it was his fault?
‘Last semester my grades were bad because I was hungry and cold, but this semester I am hungrier and colder and my family isn’t talking to me, so bring on the long division.’
Is Stacey Campfield a state senator senator or a villain from a Dickens novel?
But I gues when the State of Tennessee is handin' people up to 900000 bucks a month, they have some say.
(Fox News Reporter) "Right now the current average assistance is $189 a month."
Because $190 would spoil them.
Who is this Stacey Campfield who wants to turn Tennessee education into actual Hunger Games?
~ John Stewart on Comedy Central
White guys telling the poor and disadvantaged that it's all their fault and they're going to be punished. That's today's GOP.
~ Americans for Truth on Mediaite
This is sort of like the Rutgers Basketball Coach philosophy. belittle, threaten, belittle, threaten, belittle, incarcerate.
~ Jman on Crooks and Liars
Knowledgeable fetuses in Tennessee will just skirt this law by refusing to leave the womb.
~ MeSoHornish on The New Civil Rights Movement
This is child slavery.
~ traqair on Huff Post
Remember, Mr. "Christian" Senator, the words............"Bless the beasts and the children. For in this world they have no voice ---- they have no choice". This is a new low ----- and given many Republican remarks as of late, that's saying something!
~ Ann L. on Huff Post
So if you get good grades, we'll give you something to eat. Are these kids lab rats?
~ SOFOROBAMA on Huff Post
I think he's stupid! Can we take money away from his parents?
~ AmberWave on Huff Post
