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Bergen County Executive Kathleen A. Donovan Wishing Everyone a Happy Mothers Day

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I want to wish all the mothers and grandmothers in Bergen County a Happy Mother’s Day and let you know how special I think you are.

There is no job more difficult, more demanding or more important than that of being a mother.

Mothers give love unconditionally and everlastingly. Mothers comfort us when we are down, forgive our mistakes, and offer us a haven from the world’s troubles. Mothers love us for who we are.

Mothers are taxi drivers, cooks, doctors, teachers and psychologists all rolled into one. Mothers inspire greatness as well as kindness.

For those of us whose Mothers have passed, we remember her with great affection and love on this day and everyday.  

To the Moms everywhere, I hope you spend the day surrounded by the children you love and the families you created.

And to all you sons and daughters, take a moment to show your mother that you appreciate all the things she has done for you  — all the sacrifices she made, without complaint, year after year. It is her unconditional love that has taken you this far.

Happy Mother’s Day!
Bergen County Executive Kathleen A. Donovan

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The Mothers day countdown is on!

Karma_theridgewoodblog.net

The Mothers day countdown is on!

Only a few more days left till MOM’s big day…yes indeed Mother’s Day. A rainbow of fabulous natural nail polish colors await at Karma. We have great gift certificates as well for our products and salon services.

The weekend is here…time to treat yourself
We have fabulous manicure and pedicure salon services!

Open Saturday’s from 9am-6pm and Sunday’s 10am to 6pm. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

At Karma Organic Spa we are dedicated to creating an eco-friendly environment with organic products as a healthy alternative for your beauty needs. We even use fresh flowers, herbs and fruits in our treatments.

Looking for high quality nail polish and remover without the harsh chemicals you find in traditional products? Discover our Karma Organic signature nail care products. Our toluene, formaldehyde and phthalate free nail polishes and our soy-based, non-toxic organic nail polish removers are the answer to the eco-conscious nail care user. For an organic spa experience, check out all of our Karma Organic salon services.

32 Wilsey Square, Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
Phone(201) 857-5300
Emailcustomerservice@karmaorganicspa.com

https://www.karmaorganicspa.com//

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Starting a Small Business in New Jersey

ridgewood+coffee

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Starting a Small Business in New Jersey

If you live in New Jersey, you are in a city full of career opportunities. As you work 9 to 5 to keep the bread and butter running, you can start up a small business alongside to help you ease out the finances even more. Starting up on your own entrepreneurship venture can have many benefits, especially for single women (or mothers).

There is nothing like an overnight success in business careers; you always have to start from scratch and work your way up the business ladder. Although private jobs can be sufficient for many people out there, having your own business gives a confidence boost and independence like no other job.

Maybe someday your little venture will become so successful that you can say goodbye to your job for good! Here are some small business ideas that are very much likely to thrive in a city like New Jersey:

Event Planning

Always full of life with delightful parties and happenings, New Jersey is undoubtedly an eventful city. Event planning is a business idea that can take you a long way, provided you are creative and full of fresh ideas. Not only does this venture require very little investment at first, there is also a lot of potential in it to grow into a large scale business.

You can start off by catering small events like birthdays, workplace parties, store openings, or even small wedding parties. Begin by taking small orders that you will complete via your vendors; as your business progresses, you can add in more personalized services.

Tourism Guide

So you feel you know New Jersey and its surroundings too well? If that is the case, this is the small business idea best suitable for you. Begin by providing services to tourists visiting the city for the first time; show them around, enlighten them about the city and its history, and get them the best places to stay.

Once you have the funds, you can expand your one-man-show into a proper tourism company. You can provide packages for day to day visits and also provide travel services; for the latter you will need some cars and some New Jersey car insurance to keep your business safe.

Food Services

The people of New Jersey always welcome a new eatery in town. Good food is appreciated everywhere, and there are so many ways for you to sell your culinary skills for good money. The first idea is to start a take-away or home delivery system for delicious home cooked meals. If you are a food expert, you can provide restaurants with delicious new recipes and make a living out of it.

Other ideas include setting up a cake boutique and providing cooking classes. Like all other small businesses, you can use e-commerce to expand your clientele. Once your idea is a hit with the people, you will see it growing exponentially.

The entire tri-state area offers numerous business opportunities, and you can always use this fact to your benefit. Once your small business idea takes off in New Jersey, you will start receiving feedback from patrons in New York and Connecticut as well. Moreover, you can set up your business as a product or service for both cities, so you can flourish at a faster rate.

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Quiet Time at Valley Gives New Moms Privacy for Rest and Bonding with Baby

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Quiet Time at Valley Gives New Moms Privacy for Rest and Bonding with Baby
January 31, 2013

Ridgewood NJ, Excited visitors, squabbling siblings, and photo ops can take their toll on a new mother who is exhausted from giving birth and needs private time to bond with her new baby.

At The Valley Hospital’s Center for Childbirth, the afternoon hours of 1 to 3:30 p.m. have been designed as “Quiet Time,” a period when the lights are dimmed, soft music plays, and new moms and their support persons are encouraged to sleep and bond with their baby with skin-to-skin contact.  During Quiet Time visitors and siblings are asked to wait in the waiting rooms, and hospital personnel only enter a mother’s room if she asks for assistance.  There is a sleeper chair in each room to allow the father or other support person to rest.

“My husband, Robert, and I loved Quiet Time because it gave us private time to talk, sleep, and get to know our new daughter, Emily,” says Limor Regular, of Wyckoff, who delivered her third daughter at Valley in early January.  “I had a lot of visitors and with my two other little girls in the room with us, I wouldn’t have been able to rest without Quiet Time.”

In addition to giving new moms needed rest and privacy with their newborns, Quiet Time also encourages them to room-in as a family, learn their babies’ feeding cues, and prepare for caring for their baby at home.  When a family rests during the day in the hospital, they are better equipped to room-in with their baby at night.

“In observing Quiet Time, we are responding to patient satisfaction surveys that told us new mothers felt they did not have adequate rest time after childbirth and were disturbed by hospital interruptions and too many visitors,” says Beth McGovern, MSN, RN-OB, a clinical practice specialist for Valley’s Women’s and Children’s Services.  “Now, just before 1 p.m. our nurses and patient care associates go to each room to see if the mothers need anything, and then we tuck them in for a nap.  Our whole floor instantly feels calmer. Everyone, even our staff, is noticing the benefits of Quiet Time.”

Quiet Time is also observed in Valley’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, when parents are encouraged to practice “kangaroo care” by placing their babies skin to skin.

Quiet Time is an important component of the hospital’s Patient- and Family-Centered Care model and a step on Valley’s journey to become a designated Baby-Friendly Hospital.  The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative is a global initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the goal of which is to achieve optimal infant feeding outcomes, mother-baby bonding, improved health outcomes for mothers and babies, and elevated patient satisfaction.

Valley’s quest to become designated a Baby-Friendly Hospital is a four-phase rigorous endeavor that includes the development of new policies, research, data collection and dissemination, and a site visit.  The journey creates an environment that is supportive of best practices in maternity care.

This process fits in with Valley’s holistic approach to childbirth and mission to keep mothers and their babies together as much as possible.  In 2011, mother-baby nurses began newborn admitting procedures directly after birth. Such duties as assessing the baby’s health and taking footprints are now accomplished in the room with the mother, instead of whisking the baby away to the nursery for a bath and assessment.

“Research has shown that as newborns transition to life outside the womb they self-regulate their body temperatures better when placed skin to skin to their mothers right away rather than being separated,” says McGovern.  “Keeping them with their mothers after birth also enables them to breastfeed successfully for the first time.”

Mrs. Regular says she was pleased with Valley’s approach to promoting a natural birth experience.  “I enjoyed keeping Emily with me as much as possible, and giving her special time alone with me and her father before her sisters came to visit,” she says.

The Valley Hospital Center for Childbirth is a component of the hospital’s comprehensive Women’s and Children’s Services, which includes private labor/delivery/recovery suites and private post-partum rooms; the Center for Holistic Birth and hydrotherapy tub; maternal-fetal medicine services; genetic counseling and screening; the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and its Peek-a-Boo ICU™; Birth Doula Program; the Women’s and Children’s Resource Center; the Fertility Center; a host of family education and childbirth preparation classes; and the eLearning Childbirth Education Program.  For more information, call 201-447-8403 or visit www.valleyhealth.com/Obstetrics.

Caption:  Robert and Limor Regular at home in Wyckoff with baby Emily and daughters Tamara (left) and Maya.

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Hear a Veteran’s Story

thankful for veterans

Hear a Veteran’s Story
https://youtu.be/gkWrdt39fh0
Steven BucciNovember 12, 2012 at 8:45 am

For nearly 100 years, America has been celebrating on November 11. Originally it was to remember the end of the First World War that was supposed to be the one that would end them all. Sadly, this was not the case. In 1952, a small town in Kansas started to use the date to remember veterans of all America’s wars. Two years later, President Dwight Eisenhower recognized the brilliant stroke of a small group of “regular” Americans by making it a national holiday.

Some cynics today would say we should grow past the parades and the thousands of memorial ceremonies in small parks across America. May it never be so! Every generation of Americans has had men and women step forward and stand for this nation. Every new generation needs to learn to acknowledge the debt the nation owes them.
As we honor those who have died in the service of the nation on Memorial Day, we must acknowledge those who have served on Veterans Day.

The living veterans of America are a treasure. They are a repository of knowledge and experience, of loss, and of enormous achievement. On Veterans Day, America should reach out to these humble men and women and say “Thank you.” Beyond that, we should ask them to share their stories. When they speak, we should listen, and recognize the price these veterans paid through their service.

Try it; ask them to tell you, and for every high-sounding “hero” story you might hear, you will hear hundreds of tales that will begin with “I was just doing my job” or “I only did what anyone would have done.” In truth, these are tales of exceptional heroism in its truest sense. These heroes are not all barrel-chested characters of fiction, but citizen servants who simply answered the call, every time.

One such individual is Major Ben Richards. He has a moving story to tell about his soldiers. In an excerpt from the forthcoming film Veteran Nation, his story reminds us of the honor and sacrifice of those who serve. This film will be a touchstone for Americans who want to serve those who serve the country. (See video above.)
On this hallowed day, for that is what Veterans Day is, please join us in thanking those who have served and those who serve us still. Our sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends—Americans showing us all that standing united is far more important than any of the issues that divide us.

https://tinyurl.com/ahthdvo

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THE WELFARE WAIVERS:How They Really Do Water Down Work Requirements

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THE WELFARE WAIVERS:How They Really Do Water Down Work Requirements

Russell Sykes, Senior Fellow

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ir_27.htm#.UHWwXK5L_D5

The author is the former deputy commissioner for the Center for Employment and Economic Supports (CEES) in New York State’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. In that role he was responsible for policy development, federal, state and local relations, and oversight of many of New York’s major income support programs, including the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant to states and Welfare to Work Programs.

Background

The federal welfare reform of 1996, formally known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, was among the most significant domestic policy achievements in modern American history.[1]

Its passage meant that, for the first time, welfare recipients would be expected to work toward self-sufficiency and that the welfare bureaucracy’s focus would be on facilitating employment rather than simply writing checks. For decades prior to the reform’s passage, welfare had essentially been viewed as an entitlement. Benefits were offered to qualified participants, with few strings attached. But under the new program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), beneficiaries were required to go to work, search for work, participate in short-term training or education, or undergo drug and alcohol counseling.

And it worked. Since 1996, welfare caseloads have dropped by more than 50 percent. Millions of Americans once consigned to a lifetime of dependency have moved into the mainstream culture of work.

Now, however, welfare reform is potentially being undercut. In July 2012, the federal Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) announced that it would begin “encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.” To that end, HHS issued a “guidance” memorandum expressing its willingness to unilaterally waive existing TANF rules “to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”[2] The HHS memo undermines TANF’s work rules by:

Doing away with work participation rates in some instances;
Extending periods of education and training;
Liberalizing the counting of subsidized employment; and
Discouraging one-time non-assistance payments.
The Obama administration said that the change was a response to requests by governors for more flexibility in administering the program and that it was not intended to “waive or dismantle” the work requirement.[3] But in some key respects, the HHS waiver is inconsistent with this statement. The language itself signals the agency’s willingness to water down the program’s current focus on work participation rates as the primary test of each state’s compliance with the goals of welfare reform.

How TANF has Succeeded

The 1996 welfare reform was in large measure a corrective to a previous policy failure. The Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, enacted in 1935, was a well-intentioned New Deal effort to provide financial assistance to single-parent households during the Great Depression. At the time, AFDC beneficiaries were mostly widows. By the 1960s and 1970s, it had evolved into a gigantic entitlement program primarily serving never-married mothers and undermining the values of work and family formation.

Numerous reform efforts sputtered before 1996. Then, a Republican Congress and a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, swept away AFDC, replacing it with TANF. TANF was structured as a $16.5 billion block grant to states, providing them with the flexibility to shape their own welfare programs within four broad parameters set by the federal government.[4]

First, and most significantly, able-bodied welfare recipients would now be required to work. Caseworkers could no longer write checks and let clients languish on the rolls. In order to receive their federal block-grant monies, states had to ensure that 50 percent of adult clients receiving assistance met defined work requirements.[5] Additionally, the reform required that states maintain 75 percent of their pre-TANF welfare spending, known as their maintenance of effort level, in order to receive federal block-grant funds. That requirement rose to 80 percent of pre-TANF spending for states that did not meet work participation rates.

States could be penalized for not meeting work participation rates or maintaining the maintenance of effort level but also could receive credit in the form of reduced required work participation rates for additional spending above the maintenance of effort level.[6]

Three other key aspects of the reformed program:

Federal TANF benefits were temporary, limited to five years in a lifetime, beyond which states would pay for any continuing benefits.
Clear child-support cooperation rules were adopted, compelling single mothers to help identify and locate the fathers of their children.[7]
Assistance in job search, job placement, and other crucial support services were regularly provided. Where adults failed to comply with work rules, their entire family’s TANF benefits could be suspended.[8]
Many states took a “work first” approach, focusing on getting people rapidly employed and then using the savings resulting from reduced caseloads to help clients stay on the job, including by:

Allowing clients to keep more of their earnings before completely losing welfare cash assistance;[9]
Increasing spending on child care and other work supports such as transportation, short term job training, and ramped-up child support collections;
Creating or expanding state earned income tax credits, adding significant economic benefits to working households (New York is a prime example of this approach);[10] and
Offering more one-time payments for emergency expenses that could otherwise push a family onto the full-time welfare rolls.[11]
The reforms were highly successful. Dire predictions of widespread homelessness or families driven into poverty were proved wrong. Welfare caseloads dropped an average of 50 percent in the first 15 years after TANF’s enactment, with decreases in some states reaching 85 percent.[12] In New York State, the caseload fell by nearly two-thirds—from 1.6 million in 1996 to 564,427 in the most recent 2012 figures.[13]

The national poverty level did not increase but instead fell from 13.7 percent in 1996 to 12.5 percent in 2007, before beginning to rise thereafter because of the prolonged recession.[14] Greater numbers of poor, single mothers entered the labor market than ever before.

In 2005, TANF was reauthorized for five years. In response to the actions of some states that weakened work requirements by allowing questionable activities to qualify as employment, the reauthorizing legislation defined 12 categories of activities that could be counted toward work participation standards.[15]

Since 2010, TANF has been temporarily extended through a series of continuing resolutions.[16] The program’s most recent extension was for only six months, and it expires on March 27, 2013.[17]

How the Waiver Could Undermine Work Rules

The HHS memo assumes that the agency has the administrative authority to waive the work participation rate requirement in the law in order to test different approaches to holding states accountable. But in the 16 years since TANF was enacted, HHS has repeatedly turned down waiver requests from states regarding work requirements or other provisions of the law, stating on each occasion that the agency did not have the authority to grant waivers.[18] For the first three years of the Obama administration, HHS adhered to this historical stance. In July 2012, it abruptly abandoned it.

Despite the administration’s claims that waivers will not be allowed that dilute the emphasis on work, some of the specific language can be read otherwise.

Doing away with work participation rates in some instances

In at least two sections, the HHS memo uses specific language indicating that the agency will approve other activities “in lieu of work participation rates,” including:

“[P]rojects that test the impact of a comprehensive universal engagement system in lieu of certain participation rate requirements”;[19] and
“[P]rojects that demonstrate attainment of superior employment outcomes if a state is held accountable for negotiated employment outcomes in lieu of participation rate requirements.”[20]
The clear concern here is that the administrative memo could actually lead to an expanded TANF caseload by allowing activities that are not governed by work participation rates.

Extending periods of education and training

Another permissible waiver would be for “projects that test systematically extending the period in which vocational educational training or job search/readiness programs count toward participation rates, either generally or for particular subgroups, such as an extended training period for those pursuing a credential.”

“The purpose of such a waiver,” the HHS memo adds, “would be to determine through evaluation whether a program that allows for longer periods in certain activities improves employment outcomes.”

States have tried these approaches before, to little avail. That is the main reason that current TANF law limits vocational education to 30 percent of the countable caseload.[21] Able-bodied adults in pre-TANF times could languish in training and education programs for long periods without actively looking for or finding employment.

Liberalizing the counting of subsidized employment

HHS says that it would allow “projects under which a state would count individuals in TANF-subsidized jobs but no longer receiving TANF assistance toward participation rates for a specified period of time in conjunction with an evaluation of the effectiveness of a subsidized jobs strategy.”[22]

Subsidized employment is sometimes a useful strategy for moving people off welfare because it provides job experience and skills in the workplace. But subsidized public and private employment is already an allowable activity for those receiving TANF assistance. How the new requirements differ from current rules and what is meant by the phrase “no longer receiving TANF assistance” are not clear.

All or a portion of a TANF grant for a subsidized job is often given to a private or public employer to be passed on to the beneficiary as wages. Those in subsidized jobs may no longer technically be counted on the caseload, but to say that these households are no longer receiving TANF assistance is misleading. And, if the subsidized job does not turn into an unsubsidized job within a reasonable period of time—say, six months—then the employer has received a free or near-free employee who could ultimately return to TANF.

Greater clarity is needed to ensure that subsidized employment is not substantially extended while still being counted against work participation rates.

Discouraging one-time non-assistance payments

The HHS memo states that the agency “will not approve a waiver for an initiative that appears substantially likely to reduce access to assistance or employment for needy families”—an indication that the federal government will not support further efforts to help people without adding them to the rolls.

Under current law, under an approach known as “diversion,” states can utilize TANF funds as one-time payments to meet the short-term needs of poor people. These needs include child care, transportation, or help paying a utility bill. New York has been a leader in providing such emergency assistance, helping poor people find or keep jobs without having to enroll them in the TANF program. Nationally, such “non-assistance” expenditures accounted for 70 percent of TANF funds in 2009, but recipients of these supports are not counted in the TANF caseload.[23]

While it may be reasonable to offer states added flexibility, it should not be achieved at the cost of sacrificing clear, straightforward, and measurable work participation rates. Unfortunately, as things now stand, the states currently in penalty status for failing to meet work requirements and others might jump at the chance to be held to more permissive guidelines.

How HHS intends to apply these various changes remains unclear. The five-page memo is often vague and seemingly contrary in passages that propose alternatives to a clear focus on work. For example, the memo does not define the phrase “comprehensive universal engagement system.” The phrase “superior employment outcomes” might be interpreted as simply allowing the addition of more people to the TANF caseload and assigning them to poorly defined activities that may not constitute real work. Education and training are worthwhile pursuits, but they are not the same as actual work. There is cause to worry that the core TANF message of welfare-to-work could be undermined

States Already Have Great Flexibility

As noted earlier, while states must provide cash benefits to eligible participants, they have great flexibility to invest block-grant funds in efforts to help people get jobs as well as provide work support to those who leave welfare.

States also have leeway to reduce their nominal 50 percent work participation rate. The federal government provides a 1 percent reduction in a state’s work rate for each 1 percent decrease in caseload. Alternatively, a state can use its own funds to exceed maintenance of effort spending. For every $100 million that states spend over their required level, they can reduce their work rate by roughly 1 percent.

HHS defines “maintenance of effort” spending very broadly. In New York, for example, nearly $800 million of the total amount spent on the state’s counterpart to the federal earned income-tax credit (EITC) by itself reduces the nominal 50 percent rate to 42 percent.[24] After accounting for all caseload reduction since 2005 and the additional maintenance of effort spending, New York’s effective work participation rate was only 11.5 percent in 2009. [25] Numerous other states take advantage of this provision.

In general, this provision has fostered spending on programs that help people move from welfare to work rather than returning to TANF dependency, but it has faced harsh criticism from some members of Congress. States may disinvest in certain post-welfare supports if their ability to reduce their effective work participation rate is repealed, as has been suggested.[26]

What Should be Done to Build on Welfare Reform

The next Congress and president should work together, in the same bipartisan spirit reflected in the original 1996 reform, to produce a TANF reauthorization law that builds on the success of reform, rather than turning back the clock through waivers. Several changes to TANF—pursued, preferably, through actual legislation or regulation—would help states without undermining work participation rates. Possibilities include:

While the 2005 TANF reauthorization tightened the definition of work, it added reporting requirements and strict work verification provisions that went beyond the scope of reasonable federal oversight.[27] Reducing reporting requirements and greatly altering work-verification reporting through technology, such as finger imaging to verify attendance at activities, would allow states to focus less on compliance and more on moving beneficiaries into meaningful employment.
State TANF programs work diligently to enroll disabled adults in the Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. But some people who do not meet SSI eligibility rules also cannot meet the 30-hour weekly TANF work requirement. As disability advocates clamor for work rights under the Americans for Disability Act, the federal TANF program should grant partial credit for at least 15 hours of work by those who qualify as borderline-disabled.
Assessing the “work readiness” of those newly eligible for TANF assistance is time-consuming. Furthermore, there is currently no allowance made for the time it takes to develop an individualized plan for moving beneficiaries into short-term activities that will ultimately lead to employment. To solve this problem, the first 45 days of TANF eligibility should be exempted from the rate requirement.
The 90 percent work participation rate requirement for two-parent, intact families on TANF should be legislatively eliminated and conformed to the 50 percent rate for singles and all-family households. The 90 percent rate is unattainable and conflicts with two other TANF goals: marriage and family formation. Why give low-income couples a financial disincentive to marry?
Conclusion

Some leading congressional Republicans have challenged HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s legal authority to unilaterally waive existing TANF requirements. Legislation to overturn the waiver authority passed the House but not the Senate. [28]

Moreover, the Government Accounting Office says that HHS’s issuance of the change as an administrative memo circumvents the normal requirement for public and congressional comment on such regulatory changes.[29] While the dispute over the legality of the department’s action continues—and could even result in litigation—the department’s offer to waive the established TANF work guidelines will remain in effect. The intense scrutiny of this backdoor action may force meticulous review of any state proposal to alter the program rules, if any are submitted. But the risk remains that some of the progress of the past 15 years will be squandered. If the new HHS policy survives a potential legal challenge and ongoing congressional challenges, it is hard to see how it would not undermine the clear work participation rates in TANF.

When the latest TANF extension expires in late March of 2013, Congress should fully reauthorize the program, making necessary changes and maintaining the measurable focus on work. Returning to the old days of welfare—when virtually any assignment counted as work—is a step in the wrong direction and a truly bad idea.
Endnotes

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was passed as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, Public Law 104-193.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, “TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03, Guidance concerning waiver authority under Section 1115,” July 12, 2012, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/resource/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203?page=all (hereafter cited as TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03).
White House Blog, “Welfare, Work and America’s Governors,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/08/12/welfare-work-and-america-s-governors.
Gene Falk, Congressional Research Services (CRS) Report for Congress, “The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant: A Primer on TANF Financing and Federal Requirements,” 2007, https://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/2326.pdf.
TANF has three work participation rates: 50 percent for single-parent households; 90 percent for two-parent households (a rate that virtually no state can attain); and a 50 percent all-families rate, which is a combination of the first two rates.
45 CFR 261.43 (b), https://cfr.vlex.com/vid/261-case-rdquo-calculating-caseload-19933792.
This provision has helped states greatly increase their level of child-support collections on behalf of custodial parents (usually mothers) and has provided another significant source of income to supplement wages when the household leaves welfare.
Some states, including New York, have chosen to suspend benefits only for adults in such cases, but the vast majority of states end the total benefit until the adult complies with work requirements.
This is known as an earnings disregard. By disregarding a portion of a TANF recipient’s earned income, overall household income increases by combining work with welfare and providing an incentive to work.
New York’s generous efforts turn an $8.50/hour job ($17,680 annually) for a single-parent household of three in New York City into an annual income of over $33,000, as evidenced by this chart: https://otda.ny.gov/resources/work-supports/worksupports-NYC.pdf.
Such payments typically go to car repairs, maintaining child-care arrangements, avoiding evictions, or meeting utility or fuel emergencies.
Pamela J. Loprest, Urban Institute and HHS Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Brief no. 08, “How Has the TANF Caseload Changed over Time?,” March 2012, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/change_time_1.pdf.
New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, “Temporary and Disability Statistics,” July 2012, https://otda.ny.gov/resources/caseload/2012/2012-07-stats.pdf; of the total, 253,029 are TANF recipients and 311,427 are state safety-net recipients because they are not TANF-eligible or because they have exhausted their five-year federal eligibility or because they are enrolled in a separate state program for two-parent families.
According to U.S. Bureau of the Census reports, Poverty in the United States: 1997 and 2007, https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-201.pdf and https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2007/highlights.html.
Gene Falk, CRS Report to Congress, “A Guide to the New Definitions of What Counts as Work Participation,” 2006, https://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RS22490.pdf.
Continuing resolutions are agreements by Congress to extend the current appropriations of a program for a designated period of time, usually no longer than a year.
“H.J. Res. 117, the Continuing Appropriation Resolution, 2013,” https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43581.
GAO 12-1028R, “Waivers Related to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Block Grant,” September 2012, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-1028R.
TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03.
Ibid.
TANF changed previous welfare policy by placing new limits on “vocational education,” limiting TANF participants’ enrollment in higher education to 12 months over their maximum five years in the program, and asserting that only 30 percent of working participants per state could be enrolled at any one time.
TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03.
Loprest, “How Has the TANF Caseload Changed over Time?.”
New York actually spends closer to $1 billion on its state EITC, but some of it is disallowed as excess maintenance of effort spending under TANF, including spending that was already in place before the 1996 passage of TANF and spending for non-TANF-eligible populations.
Gene Falk, Congressional Research Service, “Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Welfare Waivers,” appendix, p. 14, September 6, 2012, https://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/files/documents/112/pdf/TANF-CRSMemo-9.6.12.pdf.
National Governors Association, October 6, 2008 letter—TANF MOE Rule, https://www.nga.org/cms/home/federal-relations/nga-letters/archived-letters–2008/col2-content/main-content-list/title_october-6-2008.html.
The 2005 TANF reauthorization and subsequent HHS final rule included a new federal fiscal penalty of 1–5 percent of the state’s TANF block grant that will be applied if states fail to meet the new work-verification procedures, which include rigorous documentation of work activity participation. The work-verification rules are complex, time-consuming, and overly prescriptive. They divert time away from finding people jobs, and they place an added burden on staff, employers, and other third parties who must adhere to them.
H.R. 6140 and same as S.3397 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr6140ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr6140ih.pdf and https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s3397is/pdf/BILLS-112s3397is.pdf.
Alfred Regnery, “Did Obama Change Work Law?,” American Conservative Union, Sept. 26, 2012, https://conservative.org/battleline/did-obama-change-work-law.

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ir_27.htm#.UHWwXK5L_D5

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Gold/Blue Star Dinner

gold star mothers day

Gold/Blue Star Dinner
ROBERT PAOLI

American Legion Post 53, Ridgewood will be honoring all Gold Star and Blue Star families in our community. We will have a dinner for them at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish Center on Friday, October 19th at 6:30 pm.

You are invited to attend. Our guest speaker is James Dao, N.Y.Times writer covering military affairs who has been in Afghanistan. Meet and greet Gold Star Mother June Augusta and many other Ridgewood families.

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Remembering 9/11 in a Volatile World

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Remembering 9/11 in a Volatile World

Eleven years ago today, terrorists shattered America’s sense of safety. Generations who did not remember Pearl Harbor suddenly knew the shock of an attack on U.S. soil.

Brothers, fathers, cousins, wives, and daughters were lost. And more sisters, mothers, husbands and sons would give their lives in the years that followed as they fearlessly joined the fight against terrorism around the world.

Because of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform—and the hours put in scanning intelligence documents and patrolling the streets by our servants here at home—America has thus far avoided another 9/11. Since that day, at least 51 terrorist plots against the country (that we know of) have been foiled. Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has been eliminated.

But as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan, the world is not becoming a safer place.

Pakistan continues to serve as a safe haven for terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Taliban, and the Haqqani network, threatening to jeopardize everything the U.S. has fought for in Afghanistan since 9/11.

In a new Issue Brief taking stock of the war on terrorism, Heritage security experts Michaela Bendikova, Lisa Curtis, and Jessica Zuckerman warn:

[T]he U.S. counter-terrorism strategy remains flawed. The U.S. needs to name its enemies, maintain the nation’s commitments abroad, fully fund the military, reach out to allies, and truly defend the home front.

The campaign has certainly seen its share of successes in addition to the bin Laden mission. Drone strikes have helped to disrupt al-Qaeda operations and planning. But the U.S. must concentrate simultaneously on “uprooting extremist ideologies that support terrorism, collecting information from captured terrorists, and convincing the Pakistanis to conduct joint operations that deal with the threat,” the authors write. Continued terrorist sanctuaries inside Pakistan’s borders remain a threat.

At home, we cannot combat terrorism under “a law enforcement paradigm that focuses on reactive policies and prosecuting terrorists rather than proactive efforts to enhance intelligence tools and thwart terrorist attempts long before the public is in danger,” they write. This strategy fails to recognize the true nature of the threat posed by terrorist groups (such as al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab) and state-sponsored terrorism, while thwarting terrorist travel and financing remain the most effective ways to protect the homeland.

Unfortunately, the reality is that terrorism—without the face of a particular nation—is not the only threat America faces. Iran and North Korea continue to invest in capabilities designed to kill Americans and our allies. Syria is wracked by civil war and has the potential to destabilize the entire Middle East.

If we are to meet this volatile world with a determination to protect U.S. citizens, our priorities must shift. The defense budget has already absorbed about half of all spending cuts even though it represents less than a fifth of the federal budget. If U.S. forces are weakened further, the country will be unable to maintain its superpower status.

Today, we remember those we have lost. Tomorrow, we must honor their memory by strengthening our defenses for those who do not yet know the horror of an attack at home—so that they never will.

https://tinyurl.com/95efqos

 

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Gold Star mothers day 2012

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Gold Star mothers day 2012

Some residents from Ridgewood and nearby area have been meeting recently to organize the
honoring of Gold Star Mothers, an organization of mothers whose sons or daughters served
and died while serving their nation in times of war or conflict. The Gold Star Mothers Day is a
national event to honor mothers who have lost a son or daughter in the service of our country.

On Sunday, September 30, 2012 our nation will honor our Gold Star Mothers and families. The
American Legion Post 53 and Ridgewood’s Blue Star Families are spearheading the effort to
bringing awareness to our community and commemorating the sacrifices these mothers and their
families have made. In Ridgewood, we will light luminaries from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. on Sunday,
September 30th at Van Neste Park. Residents will also light luminaries at the end of their
driveways. The goal is to see thousands of luminaries lit throughout Ridgewood to honor Gold
Star Mothers on September 30th!

The effort has seen a lot of enthusiasm from local groups such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
Order of Elks, VFW and many businesses. To find out how you can be part of this event, please
contact Maria Bombace or Bob Paoli.

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Happy Mother’s Day from the Ridgewood blog

spring time theridgewoodblog.net

Mother’s Day is a celebration that honors mothers and motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March, April, or May. It complements Father’s Day, a celebration honoring fathers.
Celebrations of mothers and motherhood occur throughout the world. Many of these trace back to ancient festivals, like the Greek cult to Cybele, the Roman festival of Hilaria, or the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration. However, the modern holiday is an American invention and not directly descended from these celebrations.Despite this, in some countries Mother’s Day has become synonymous with these older traditions.

Julia Ward Howe was the first to proclaim Mother’s Day in 1870. Her Mother’s Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The modern holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in America. She then began a campaign to make “Mother’s Day” a recognized holiday in the United States. Although she was successful in 1914, she was already disappointed with its commercialization by the 1920s. Jarvis’ holiday was adopted by other countries and it’s now celebrated all over the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother’s_Day

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Restaurant review: Village Green in Ridgewood

theRidgewood blog ICON theridgewoodblog.net 42

Restaurant review: Village Green in Ridgewood
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2012
By ELISA UNG
RESTAURANT REVIEWER

The dishes at Village Green look so striking that it’s almost a shame to eat them. Almost.They are constructed with such care and precision, it’s as if the ingredients were precious jewels. Thick chunks of crabmeat drape over delicate wontons; long, crisp-skinned gnocchi nestles in with pine nuts and cubes of butternut squash. Chambord pastry cream smothers layers of puff pastry.

I first awarded three stars to Village Green in 2008, and am now cheering on its evolution under chef Kevin Portscher, who purchased the restaurant last summer. The Culinary Institute of America graduate’s résumé includes five years in one of the most prestigious kitchen jobs in Ridgewood – chef de cuisine at Latour.

https://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/151079125_Restaurant_review__Village_Green_in_Ridgewood.html

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Rand Paul Launches Campaign to End the TSA

theRidgewood blog ICON theridgewoodblog.net 3

Rand Paul Launches Campaign to End the TSA

New legislation would abolish government involvement in airport security
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, May 3, 2012

Senator Rand Paul has issued a press release in which he vows to lead the charge to “end the TSA” and put a stop to the needless and humiliating groping of toddlers and grandmothers.

Earlier this year, Paul was detained by the TSA after refusing to submit to an invasive pat down after already having passed through a body scanner. The incident prompted national headlines and caused the Senator to miss his flight.

https://www.infowars.com/rand-paul-launches-campaign-to-end-the-tsa/

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>The fact of the matter is the majority of pedestrians killed or seriously hurt in town in recent years were in crosswalks. The law clearly states that pedestrians have the right of way and drivers MUST STOP for them

>For every instance of kids walking into the street without looking I could site examples of mothers with baby carriages waiting in crosswalks as cars zoom past. 

The fact of the matter is the majority of pedestrians killed or seriously hurt in town in recent years were in crosswalks. The law clearly states that pedestrians have the right of way and drivers MUST STOP for them.

The problem in Ridgewood is compounded by drivers who get annoyed by situations that “force them to stop” just like you expressed. Usually there is a very good reason for the car in front of you being stopped – they are probably obeying the law and yielding to a pedestrian. The impatient driver will make the determination that the driver in front of them must be daydreaming and pull their car around the stopped car, usually with the pedal on the floor….OPPS, I just ran over a person in the crosswalk! Oh well, I’ll just get a ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian and go on with my life.

Bringing “Wall Street” into this issue is silly and irrelevant but since you did – The only obvious similarity between the two issue is this: Neither the self important Wall Street hot shots (who ran the world economy into a ditch) nor the distracted drivers who hit pedestrians in crosswalks go to jail. Oh, and both groups live in Ridgewood. What a surprise!

Finally, why is enforcing the law as it pertains to pedestrians in crosswalks or jaywalking for that matter an example of a “nanny state” mentality? If someone came up behind you on the Ridgewood Ave and stole your wallet out of your pocket, I’d bet you’d go straight to the police, right? I might argue (in your world at least) that you should have been more careful, had your wallet in your front pocket with your hand over it to prevent someone from pickpocketing you. I could go on to argue that by reporting reporting the crime to the police you were looking for the big bad Government to bail you out of your own stupidity. Just because you’re clearly inconvenienced by the law that compels you to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks doesn’t make the law go away. Do everyone a favor and slow down, yield to pedestrians and help solve the problem we have in Ridgewood. The life you save just might be one of your loved ones.

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>Ridgewood will honor military families with a candle-lighting ceremony

>Ridgewood will honor military families with a candle-lighting ceremony

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
BY JOSEPH CRAMER
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

There will be some extra illumination in Ridgewood this Sunday as military families gather for a candle-lighting ceremony at Van Neste Square in honor of Gold Star Mother’s Day.

A national observance in honor of mothers and families whose sons or daughters have been killed while on duty in the United States military, Gold Star Mother’s Day takes place on the last Sunday of September each year, accompanied by a proclamation from the president.

This Sunday will mark the first time an official commemoration has been conducted in the village, something American Legion Post 53 member Bob Paoli attributes to a simple fact.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/130298188_Ridgewood_will_honor_military_families_with_a_candle-lighting_ceremony.html

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>Happy Mother’s Day

>Happy Mother’s Day 

The celebrations of mothers and motherhood occur throughout the world and can often be traced back to ancient festivals .One of the earliest historical records of a society celebrating a Mother deity or Mothers Day can be found among the ancient Egyptians, who held an annual festival to honor the goddess Isis, who was commonly regarded as the Mother of the pharaohs. The ancient Greek cult to Cybele or the Roman festival of Hilaria are also examples. The modern US-celebration of Mother’s Day is not directly related to any of these.

Julia Ward Howe lead the early call to celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States in the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” Written in 1870, The proclamation was reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s belief that mothers had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

International Women’s Day was celebrated originally on 28 February 1909, in the US, by which time Anna Jarvis had already begun her national campaign in the US. It is now celebrated in many countries on March 8.

more:
https://www.manhattanstyle.com/events/happy-mothers-day/

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