TANF TOWN HALL MEETING
 
MARRIAGE PROMOTION
 
TIME LIMITS
 
     
 
Marriage Promotion
 
 
LIFETIME Parent Leaders protest Marriage promotion at the Valentine's Day Action in San Francisco, February 2004.
In February 2003, the House of Representatives voted to approve HR4 "The Republican Welfare Bill", and reauthorize the legislation that created welfare reform in 1996.

Central to H.R.4 is President Bush’s controversial proposal to funnel $1.5 billion over five years to promote marriage programs for low-income mothers, and move them from welfare to weddings through faith-based marriage counseling and education programs and cash bonuses for welfare mothers who marry.

G. W. joins in on the Action.

Not only does HR4 focus on marriage promotion, it increases weekly welfare work requirements for low-income mothers, who will have to find a job and work 40 hours a week, or perform unpaid “workfare” of 160 hours a month for welfare benefits, which average $679 for a family of three in California.

In addition, H.R. 4 increases welfare work participation rates for the states, who will have to place more welfare mothers in jobs, or create workfare programs to meet the increased work rates. However, due to rising unemployment and the country's economic downturn, already-cash-strapped states will be forced to implement massive workfare programs to enable welfare recipients to meet their mandatory work requirements.

Valentine's Day Action in Oakland, February 2005

This component of the President's plan will cost the states $11 billion to implement - and according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, it will cost California $2.9 billion alone—a cost our state can’t afford.

  
 

 
 

In response to H.R.4 LIFETIME organized Valentine's Day Actions in downtown San Francisco in February 2003 and February 2004, and in downtown Oakland in February 2005.
     
 

These events featured a mock wedding to protest the President’s proposal to spend $1.5 billion on marriage programs for welfare moms, which was promoted at a forum at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  According to protest organizers, the Bush proposal is particularly troubling, given the findings of their survey.  “Because of domestic violence, I lost my home and my job.  Now the President wants to make me quit school and get married,” said Ms. Moore, “mothers like me need access to education, not marriage counseling.  My degree will get my family off welfare, not a husband.”

     
 

Press who covered these events included: San Francisco Bay Guardian, Sing Tao Daily News, KPFA Evening News, a nationally syndicated article by The Contra Costa Times and The Christian Science Monitor featured an Op Editorial written by Executive Director, Diana Spatz.