Deputy Ministry of Immigrant Absorption Marina Solodkin yesterday called on State Comptroller and Ombudsman Micha Lindenstrauss to immediately act to suspend the Wisconsin program (also known as welfare-to-work) until after the elections, so that the Knesset can amend the law and direction of the program. She sought Lindenstrauss’s help after efforts to suspend the program through other Knesset committee failed.
Solodkin told the Knesset State Control Committee said the Wisconsin program was “an ongoing scandal” that resulted in many complaints by persons harmed by the program. She said she was forced to halt all other current activities in recent months in order to deal solely with complaints from people harmed by the program.
The State Control Committee convened to seek Lindenstrauss’s opinion on how the law had been applied. Committee chairman MK Meli Polishook-Bloch (Shinui) said criticism should not focus on the question how many welfare payments were saved, but on how many jobs were created. She believes that at the Wisconsin program’s current level of performance, it could be run by the Israel National Employment Service (INES), rather than by a private mechanism that costs the state NIS 80 million.
MK Yuri Shtern (Ihud Leumi), who initiated the discussion, said the government was throwing away money to a private party without considering a population that could not work. He called the Wisconsin program a “bulldozer” that destroyed lives and left ruins in its wake in order to return a few bums to work, who would later be able to evade work.
Wisconsin program managers said MKs had listened to incorrect facts, and that data in the field were different.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on January 18, 2006