Welfare
Meg Whitman
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Oct. 15, 2010I’ve identified $15 billion of savings that will, frankly, I think make California stronger, not weaker. And I’ll tell you the categories they fall in. We have too many people who work in government. Second, we’ve got to reform the public employee pension crisis. In 2000, we spent $300 million to support the public employee pension. This year it’s $3.9 billion. Then we have to reform welfare. We’ve become a welfare state. And then we really need to run this government more efficiently and effectively. Using technology would be a place I’d start.
Source: The Caucus (New York Times)Tags: State workers, Welfare, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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Oct. 5, 2010"Jerry Brown has been asleep at the switch in the fight against welfare fraud and the abuse of taxpayer's money. The LA Times has revealed that $69 million in welfare payments meant for impoverished families and children have been spent out-of-state in recent years at places like luxurious Hawaiian islands, Las Vegas casinos and cruise ships. This abuse of taxpayers dollars has happened right under Jerry Brown's nose. Brown has used taxpayer resources to run for office and shamelessly chase headlines. After multiple investigations into celebrity overdoses and children's bouncy houses, Brown's inability to police this type of wide-scale abuse is unacceptable. It's not enough for Brown to simply show up and grandstand after the taxpayer has been ripped off. My approach to this type of abuse stands in sharp contrast to Jerry Brown's: I have outlined a plan to empower Californians with a grand jury to investigate and fight fraud in the welfare system and protect the taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook for Sacramento's failure to act." --Meg Whitman, Republican nominee for Governor
Source: Meg Whitman campaignTags: Welfare, Candidate attack, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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Sept. 20, 2010"California never participated in Bill Clinton's welfare to work," she said. "We have to bring this into line for budget reasons but also for the strength of our community. My view of welfare is it can't become a way of life. So, we've got to get people training, get them back to work. "The very best social program anyone ever invented was a job," she said.
Source: Contra Costa TimesTags: Jobs, Welfare, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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Aug. 30, 2010Did you know that six out of the top 15 public universities in America are UC schools? Our state has some of best colleges and universities in the world, but now budget cuts are threatening higher education. I have a plan. Let’s invest a billion dollars in the UC and CSU systems to achieve two goals: stop the tuition increases and protect our ability to do innovative research. But how do we get the money? We’ll reform our broken welfare system. California has one-third of all welfare cases in the country, but we have only 12 percent of the U.S. population. Let’s require work for welfare and a two-year time limit on welfare benefits. Real welfare reform has worked in other states. It’s time to do it here. We’ll use some of the money we save to invest in state colleges. That’s my stand. What’s yours? Let me know at MegWhitman.com.
Source: Meg Whitman campaignTags: Education, Welfare, Policy or issue position, Specific policy point or details
Meg Whitman
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July 13, 2010One area where I will make cuts is welfare spending. California has twice the population of New York State, but we have five times the number of welfare cases. I will introduce work-for-welfare and put time limits on welfare benefits.
Source: Meg Whitman campaignTags: Welfare, Assertion of fact, Specific policy point or details
Meg Whitman
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June 30, 2010Whitman said she could cut $15 billion out of the state’s $19 billion budget deficit. She would do it by reducing the state payroll, reforming the pension system, putting limits on welfare benefits and running government more efficiently, Whitman said.
Source: Ventura County StarTags: Budget, State workers, Welfare, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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June 22, 2010Whitman supports the nurse-to-patient ratios as prescribed in California law and opposes attempts to weaken them. Whitman also has said she will take $1 billion in savings from welfare reforms and invest it in California Community Colleges and the CSU and UC systems that will expand nurse training and help address the state's nursing shortage.
Source: Meg Whitman campaignTags: Education, State workers, Welfare, Specific policy point or details
Meg Whitman
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May 25, 2010Kudlow: How do you close the remaining $5 billion? Whitman: You put Californians back to work. We have lost $20 billion of tax revenues, roughly, because of the recession and because of rising unemployment rates. The number one priority is you have to put Californians back to work. There is no way out of the financial mess unless you reduce the unemployment rate. Larry, you understand this. When unemployment rates are high you have declining tax revenues, but you've also increasing costs. We're running $237 million a week in unemployment benefits in California. So, we're in a financial vice. So that's why I am here in Orange County today talking about how we are going to put Californians back to work and reduce the unemployment rate. I have a plan to create two million new private sector jobs by 2015, and that's absolutely essentially to return California
Source: The Kudlow Report (CNBC)Tags: Budget, Taxes, Welfare, Assertion of fact, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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May 25, 2010We have to reform our welfare program. We are the welfare state in many ways, Larry. We have 12 percent of the U.S. population, 32 percent of the welfare cases. We've got to do what businesses do every day. We have to use technology to do more with less. We have to use technology to find the fraud and mismanagement in the system. I can tell you we've got a lot in the state of California and I'm going to get after it.
Source: The Kudlow Report (CNBC)Tags: Budget, Welfare, Assertion of fact, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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May 18, 2010You know my view on CalWorks is, I would've reformed welfare as opposed call for its entire elimination. I think that's the way I probably would've approached it.
Source: Sacramento BeeTags: Budget, Welfare, Specific policy point or details
Meg Whitman
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May 18, 2010I think everything has to be on the table and we've got to look at everything. I think some of the cuts were quite meritorious. But I will tell you, I don't think the hard work was done here over the last two-to-three years to get after things like fraud and waste and abuse that I'm talking about here; cutting the number of government employees; reforming the pension system and reforming welfare.
Source: Sacramento BeeTags: Budget, State workers, Welfare, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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May 18, 2010If I had been governor, we wouldn't have been in this position because a lot of the hard work was not done over the last several years to put ourselves in the position where revenues are greater than costs. And so I would have started with taking on the pension reform that needs to be taken on. We have got $100 billion in unfunded pension and health care liability facing us and we are going to have to increase the retirement age, increase vesting periods, new employees are going to have to come in under a different deal because this is perhaps the single most important issue facing California. Last year we spent $3.3 billion of the general fund to try to solve this pension problem. I would have reformed welfare and I would have gotten to work on the waste and fraud in the system.
Source: Hugh Hewitt ShowTags: Budget, Government services, State workers, Welfare, Assertion of fact, Policy or issue position, Promise, Specific policy point or details
Meg Whitman
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May 18, 2010We're running around $200 million a week in unemployment insurance in California.
Source: Hugh Hewitt ShowTags: Budget, Government services, Jobs, Welfare, Assertion of fact
Meg Whitman
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May 17, 2010We've got to reform the public employee pensions. We've got to reform welfare, not eliminate it, but reform welfare. And we've got to learn to do more with less like we do in business every single day. You've got to use technology, you've got to streamline how things are done. And you've got to root out the fraud and the waste. That's one of the things I'm doing here in Sacramento is announcing a new way to get after what could be $6 to $10 billion worth of fraud in the entire California budget.
Source: Fox Business NetworkTags: State workers, Telecommunications, Welfare, Policy or issue position
Meg Whitman
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May 17, 2010I think the state of California and our cities and counties need to solve our problems. We have got to put our fiscal house in order, whether it's the state, or whether it's Los Angeles or San Diego. We have got to cut government spending, we've got to reduce the number of people who work for the state of California, we have to reform welfare, we've got to get our public employee pension problem under control, and we have to use technology to solve problems and do more with less and so I would encourage every city and county to focus---
Source: Neil Cavuto (Fox News)Tags: Budget, Government services, State workers, Welfare, Policy or issue position
