Unbelievable.

[conuly]

The tens of thousands of cops, firefighters, construction workers and others who survived the worst terrorist assault in U.S. history and risked their lives in its wake will soon be informed that their names must be run through the FBI’s terrorism watch list, according to a letter obtained by HuffPost.

Any of the responders who are not compared to the database of suspected terrorists would be barred from getting treatment for the numerous, worsening ailments that the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation Law was passed to address.

It’s a requirement that was tacked onto the law during the bitter debates over it last year.

In other news, this jerk in Michigan wants to require that foster care kid only get their clothing used. Because right now they're living the high life with designer clothes at the extravagant cost of $107 a year. (You'll see people in the comments talking about an $80 limit, but I don't know where they got that number. I got mine directly off the Michigan foster care website.) $107 is juuuuuust barely enough to buy school uniforms for one child - assuming you plan on the kid rewearing the clothes at least once between washings. (If your kid is likely to play in the mud, paint in school, or squirt ketchup on that shirt during lunch? Tough luck. You want to do a midweek laundry day?) It doesn't pay for a coat and shoes as well. Of course, your hypothetical foster kid might not go to a school with a uniform policy. Great - you only have to buy one set of clothes... and now everybody will know if he or she wears the same shirt twice in a week!

Of course, that's buying clothes new. That's not driving all around town in the hopes that you'll be able to find enough thrift store clothes in the kid's size to make a full wardrobe. Undoubtedly foster kids in Michigan already have some of their clothing from thrift stores, as I can't work out any other way to make it work, but why not, novel idea, why not let the kids and/or their foster parents determine the best, thriftiest way to spend that clothing money?

Comments

[goldoyster.livejournal.com]

"once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.”

So untrue. I get to know each season's collection from the most common kids and baby stores around here: Zara Kids, baby Gap, Old Navy and H&M kids. I often spot where a child got their clothing, and can also tell if it's a past season based on wear and style. I don't do it on purpose, I just have a good memory. Not that I care, cute and clean and appropriate for the weather is all that matters to me.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

No, it's still true. If my kid is wearing an Old Navy shirt that you or I know is from 2 years ago, you still don't know if I bought it at Old Navy and a younger kid in the family is wearing it, or if I just walked out of the second hand shop with it. I just went to Old Navy and bought jackets on clearance for $1.20 per jacket, and gloves for 68cents a pair. I bought them in sizes all the way up to 10 year old (my older one is still only 6). So when she's wearing that jacket next year, no one will know if it was bought new at Old Navy and saved, bought new then used and handed down, or bought at a thrift store.

I am NOT saying I agree with the article, just that knowing if clothing is from a past season does not mean you know WHERE it was bought or in what condition.

[goldoyster.livejournal.com]

True, I've recognized clothes from past seasons, seen an older sibling and assumed.

Also, wow! Your Old Navy is so much cheaper than ours! I assume you're in the States. You guys pay so much less for everyday things.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused on the clothing rate, because it says $1.10/day for children 0-12, which works out to $401.50/year, and then there's the semi-annual allowance of $107 -- does that come twice a year? If so, that's more like $615.50/year for clothing.

But unless that article is really bad, he's not proposing that the allowance be reduced, just that it be issued in gift cards for thrift stores, which would almost certainly wind up costing the state more in added bureaucracy. One wonders if he's in the pocket of the Salvation Army.

I also wonder if the foster families are required to send in receipts for their purchases, to prove that they're spending the state funds on their wards. If not, then maybe issuing the funds in some non-fungible form might be a good idea, but damn if it doesn't sound over-complicated any way you put it.

[conuly]

I'm assuming that they made some sort of mistake there and they don't get money for clothing in the biweekly payments, because $400 a year is actually heading into extravagance.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

Maybe? But if the $107 is semi-annual then you're looking at more like $214/year.

I admit that for the 0-12 age group I don't find $400/year unreasonable, because they grow so damn fast and mess up their clothes all the time, and then there's the matter of shoes, but I am not a parent or guardian so I don't know.

[conuly]

It's not unreasonable to normal people, no. They wear out their clothes, they outgrow what they don't wear out, shoes are damn expensive, and they really need all sorts of coats and hats and other outergear that they're bound to lose. Plus, with foster kids, you can't trust that their clothes will be handed down to their younger siblings or neighbors or whatnot - something that definitely cuts down on the cost of clothing in a neighborhood!

And, of course, there's the issue of school uniforms.

However, to people determined to save the taxpayer's dime at all costs (and if you've ever heard the phrase penny wise and pound foolish, skimping on the care of children has got to be it, somewhere just under skimping on health care), it's downright obscene. $107 a year can, just barely, outfit a child... if you shop around and hit the thrift stores and all that. That's not taking car fare into account, but hey, that's somebody else's concern! $214 is much more reasonable - but they'll be lucky to have a few fashionable outfits in there. They're not parading around in designer jeans all day.

$400 will get some very nice stuff that can be handed down, enough shoes that they aren't constantly going around with holes in them, a few fashionable clothes (which can be tediously important to children, and if you can afford it you might as well), and some nice things for religious services and the like. And enough clothing that you can probably go just over a week or even up to two weeks before you have to do laundry again. Probably it'll cover stuff for lessons as well - dance or martial arts or soccer or swimming. Not the lessons themselves, but the apparel needed.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I always thought that foster parents were expected to shoulder some of the burden for caring for their kids, that giving them too much might be encouraging the wrong sort of people to take on foster kids and then treat them like crap for the money's sake. But I don't know. I don't deny that an incentive's needed for taking on kids who more than likely have serious trauma in their immediate past, but it needs to be balanced between "no reasonable person would want to do this" and "many unreasonable people would do this for the cash."

Thrift-store shopping doesn't seem as bad a deal for children in one way, since they grow out of/destroy clothes pretty frequently, but you have to really comb through the racks to find things that don't have too much wear in them. In the other way, kids can spot a thrift-store outfit from a mile off, and if your kid's already got problems in his/her life it's not so great to add the burden of unpopularity. Tedious the importance may be, but the consequences aren't, to them.

At any rate, and whatever the state's actually paying, I think this is a stupid idea because somebody has to administer the gift-card program and it's not going to save the state any money at all. Just reduce the stipend if you're so damn worried, buddy, and quit trying to work out your own bitterness about your horrible deprived childhood (/sarcasm) on today's foster children, who have enough to worry about.

edit: Two more things -- one, oh my god I forgot about how many gloves and hats I lost in my childhood, how could I possibly forget, I still feel guilty about it sometimes... yeah, good solid outerwear is a bit pricey, and unless you want to send your kid to school with idiot mittens until age 18, they will lose some bits.

The other is, I mentioned this to Charles, and he pointed out that the state legislature is full of morons and cranks because we don't want them running our businesses, but in the end it means the state government is straight-up bullshit. Our term limits mean that the idiots get changed out on a regular basis, but it also means that the smart people have just learned how best to run things before they get booted, and the smartest people won't even bother because they won't get anywhere in the short amount of time they have.

At least we have it written into our constitution that we cannot be in debt. This means a shutdown every year around budget time while the idiots try to figure things out, but we don't have to worry about them deciding that deficit spending is awesome. Compared to states like California, we're in pretty good shape.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Wow both of those are really sad.