I've been thinking (now there's a scary thought being a Texas A&M graduate and all) that the real driver for social chaos and violence will not be the end of electricity perhaps, but the end of the welfare state as we know it. There are too many 2nd and 3rd generation welfare recipients (my wife is a social worker) in our society. I can't even begin to imagine the chaos when, not if, the computers pull the plug on child care ,child support enforcement child welfare programs, Food and Nutrition Service, food stamps, Health Care Financing Administration (Medicaid), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Women, Infants, and Children.

Your state is listed in this report (except for South Dakota). It is just the states self reporting so the actual numbers are probably worse than reported. The reported numbers are scary enough.

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), November 11, 1998

Answers

and the URL is...?

-- a (a@a.a), November 11, 1998.

Sorry, I must have assumed most of you know these sites like the back of your hand.

http://www.gao.gov/y2kr.htm

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), November 11, 1998.

Here is a clip to give you a feel for the report:

... Overall, about one-third of the systems are reported to be compliant. The compliance rate ranged from only 16 percent of the Medicaid systems to about half of the CC and CW systems. (See appendix II for details.)  States reported that they had completed the assessment phase for about 80 percent of the welfare systems supporting these seven programs. (See appendix III for details.)  According to OMB guidelines,2 systems renovation work should have been completed by September 1998. By comparison, as of the July/August 1998 response dates, states reported having completed renovation on only about one-third of the systems. At that time, only Arkansas, Idaho, and Utah reported that they were over 75 percent complete in renovating all systems supporting the seven programs. Of those states that had not completed this phase, many systems (25 percent) were no more than one quarter complete. Eighteen states reported that they had completed renovating one quarter or fewer of their Medicaid claims processing systems. These 18 states had Medicaid expenditures of about $40 billion, one quarter of total Medicaid expenditures, for about 9.5 million recipients in fiscal year 1997. (See appendix IV for details.)  About one quarter of the systems were reported as having completed the validation and implementation phases. Thorough testing is required to ensure that Year 2000 modifications function as intended and do not introduce new problems. Despite this need, states said that they had not developed test plans for about 27 percent of the systems. (See appendix V for details.)...

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), November 11, 1998.

You mentioned the older format (paper check) Women-Infant-Children Food Stamp programs. Does this report cover just the admin side, the money exchange side between fed-state-local governemnts, the food stamp printing side, the distribution, or the repayment to the stores part of the whole program? Can we tell what will be impacted at what level of the "food chain"? What are their contingency plans if (when) things break?

Any feel for the relationship between the "new" ATM-style debit welfare states and the older paper food stamps? Isn't that even more vunerable to electronic disruption up and downthe line? Ie. what happens if banks and fed system are okay, but the phone company is down for 3,4,5,6 days?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 11, 1998.

Hey, this is going to be OK. Parasites will have to fend for themselves, whether they are capitalists, communists, esquires or trailer trash. I can't wait for deliverance.

-- guillome (hoorah@generaldegaulle.com), November 11, 1998.

We are all parasites on Mother Earth....but I do believe we have all of the ingredients for class warfare if the "have-nots" are cut off (the "tit") for even a few days.

-- A Parasite (noname@noaddress.com), November 11, 1998.

Here is an article about it:

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1198/111098b1.htm

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 12, 1998.

Jon, I DID IT!!! Thanks!

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 12, 1998.