The Senate extended TANF, the basic welfare bill, which was set to expire after a temporary extension in December, but didn't include reauthorizing the Emergency Fund, a provision of the stimulus bill that encouraged employers to hire low-income, unemployed workers by partially subsidizing their paychecks. The emergency fund expired in September but the hope was that it would be renewed.
On the surface, this is the kind of thing conservatives want; it's actually welfare-to-work in action and is also a job-creating program that helps companies hire where they wouldn't be able to without the support. But conservatives, of course, found a way to spin it: It's part of the stimulus, and the party line is that the stimulus didn't work. Now, with 10 percent unemployment, another quarter of a million people who found work under the program could stay unemployed.
-- Monica Potts
