John Oliver discusses TANF – a federal program designed to help families with little to no income – who’s currently receiving these vital funds, who should be receiving them, and what it all has to do with Brett Favre.

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-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Our main story tonight concerns TANF.

It is a commonly used acronym that in Britain stands for That Arsehole Nigel Farage, but in this country, it stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program designed to help families with little to no income.

TANF is an absolutely vital resource, and also, the program underneath Mississippi's spectacular ongoing scandals involving former quarterback, Brett Favre.

NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre is under growing pressure tonight, as a new court filing says the former football star waged a campaign to aggressively lobby for millions of dollars from the state welfare agency, to finish building a volleyball facility at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played the sport.

Brett Favre was involved in getting 5000000 dollars in TANF funds funneled into building this volleyball stadium.

And I'm a little surprised you even need a stadium to play volleyball in.

I thought it was a sport mainly played outdoors by sexually frustrated men who aren't wearing shirts and sporty dogs who unexpectedly are.

But Favre's role in this scandal went far beyond just volleyball.

He's also alleged to have helped get around 2000000 of TANF dollars, routed to a pharmaceutical company that he invested in, and personally received over a million more for the promise that he'd make public appearances or record PSAs.

And in his text messages to a central figure in the scheme, a woman named Nancy Neu, Favre seemed eager to keep the details of this deal private.

Text show, Favre was worried about how it might look.

He wrote, "...if you were to pay me, is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much?" New replied, no, but added, "...I understand you being uneasy about that."

Yeah, me too, but Brett, I have some terrible news for you.

But the fourth part of the story is just the tip of the iceberg here.

Because amazingly, from 2016 to 2019, at least $77 million in federal welfare money was stolen or misspent in Mississippi.

6 people have been criminally charged so far, with most pleading guilty, including the former director of the state's welfare agency.

This scandal is full of both bizarre details and a weird number of former athletes, including retired WWE wrestler, Ted the Million Dollar Man, DiBiase, seen here in his heyday looking very cool.

-♪ ♪ -♪ DiBiase and his ministry apparently received nearly $2 million to, among other things, create a phone app to reach troubled teens and send them Bible verses, something that apparently never happened, which is probably just as well, given that it's hard to imagine this man helping any teen who is in trouble, unless the thing they're having trouble with is figuring out what it would look like if Steven Seagal somehow aged even worse.

-♪ Laugh track ♪ -And look, legally, I have to tell you that both Favre and DiBiase maintain they did nothing wrong and have not been criminally charged.

And Favre wants us to tell you that he returned the 1.1 million that he was personally paid and says that he didn't know any of the money was coming from welfare funds.

Although, it's not clear exactly where exactly he did think the money was coming from.

Perhaps he thinks there's some pot of taxpayer money that he can just dip his sausage fingers into whenever he needs something.

But what is not in dispute here is that For years, there were people in Mississippi in dire need of help who just couldn't get it.

Tamara Edwards raised 4 children on her own in Mississippi, applying for welfare benefits just once for childcare while she worked.

When I reapplied, I was not able to be on it again, because they told me that they didn't have the fundings for it.

And it gets even worse when you learn that in Mississippi last year, of roughly 190, 000 children living in poverty, Just 2, 600 were receiving money from TANF.

Well, remember, of the roughly 1 Brett Favre's in Mississippi, 100% of them managed to get 5000000 dollars for this fucking volleyball stadium.

It's enough to make you want to see Brett Favre hit in the nuts with a football.

And the good news is, I can actually help you there.

He was on the practice field this week and got hit in the not so friendly area.

And by the way, Kudos to the local news team for adding the boing sound effect there.

But it is important to know that while what happened in Mississippi rose to criminal charges, in states all over the country, the TANF program has been abused for decades and completely legally.

In fact, nationwide, for every 100 families in poverty, only 21 receive TANF cash assistance, meaning we have a program that is supposed to give money to families in desperate need, and 4 out of 5 of them just aren't getting it.

So tonight, let's talk about TANF, And let's start with why it is so important.

TANF is the only federal anti-poverty program that provides monthly cash assistance.

That makes it very different from, say, SNAP, you know, formerly known as food stamps, because that can only be used to pay for food.

Whereas TANF funds, by contrast, can be used for all sorts of other necessities from diapers to toothpaste to utility bills.

So it can be an absolute lifeline for families.

And the truth is, we've long known just how important cash assistance can be.

In 1935, FDR pushed for the Aid to Dependent Children program.

And back then, the idea had broad support.

The welfare of a nation depends upon the welfare of its children.

To provide for children who have lost their breadwinners, the state and federal governments provide monthly cash payments so that these children may grow up at home with their own families.

Aid for children who, as citizens of tomorrow,

It is genuinely refreshing to hear that kind of voice saying such nice things.

Although, given the time, I am guessing that if he just kept talking, he would have said something like, also, nothing calms a hysterical child like a good smack with a stick.

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ That program continued to have support for years, while perhaps, not coincidentally, it was primarily white families, like those you just saw, who were the ones using it.

But as barriers preventing black families from participating began to fall, people suddenly began to panic about whether these programs might actually encourage laziness and dependency.

And to use America's official slogan, Ronald Reagan made it worse.

70s and 80s, led by Reagan, pushed largely bullshit or cherry-picked narratives of fraud and abuse.

It got to the point where by the mid-90s, 1 Florida representative found this a completely acceptable way to talk about welfare recipients.

First, because if left in a natural state, alligators can fend for themselves.

They work, gather food, and care for their young.

Secondly, we post these warnings because unnatural feeding and artificial care creates dependency.

When dependency sets in, these otherwise abled alligators can no longer survive on their own.

I know people are not alligators, but I submit to you that with our current handout, non-work welfare system, we've upset the natural order.

From casually comparing poor people to animals to claiming that alligators work.

Which begs the question, the fuck are you talking about?

Alligators don't have jobs, unless you consider looking like someone put a dragon baby into a panini press to be a job, in which case, yes, they are indeed working 24-7.

Now, at the time that arsehole was speaking, the federal government had already begun allowing and encouraging states to experiment with various so-called welfare-to-work approaches, with the aim being to get as many people off government assistance as possible and into the workforce.

And back then, both Democrats and Republicans seized on what appeared to be a successful program in Riverside County, California.

They emphasized getting a job above all else, and were said to have increased participants' earnings by nearly 50 percent.

The man overseeing that program, Larry Townsend, was celebrated at the time, even dubbed the Magic Bureaucrat, and was brought before Congress to share the secrets to his success.

If you call Riverside County and nobody answers the phone, you'll get a work ethic message.

We have produced a compact disc with work ethic music.

1 of the pieces of music is, welfare is temporary, not a way of life.

Larry oversaw the production of this album of work ethic music that they play in the office and to people who were put on hold.

Now, is he right to claim that it was a beautiful piece of music?

Be proud of honest labor, have dignity and pride.

You know, finally, we have a recording that answers the question, what if We Are The World fucked a cheap motivational poster?

And if you think every track on the album was confined to the genre of pop soul ballad.

You are very wrong, because they also did a dance number that, fair warning, really puts the no into techno.

Well, Beth, it's temporary It's not a way of life

Well, Beth, naked, sexy, merry Have dignity and pride ♪ I hate

That song sounds like Daft Punk if it turned out the people under the masks were Kevin O'Leary and Mark Cuban.

It is genuinely difficult to stop talking about this album, because what am I supposed to do here?

Just move on to the rest of this story and not play you the hip-hop track?

And your dreams into reality ♪ -♪ And your dreams into reality ♪ -♪ Work for it, work for it

Work for it, work for it ♪ -♪ You can be proud

of what you've made, babe ♪ -♪ Work for it, work for it

Work for it, work for it We found a way to save it Work for

You thought you knew how bad that was gonna be, right?

Then you get to that last, "'Cause you can get a job, " bit, and it somehow gets worse.

Now, interestingly and importantly, later studies found that that man's program didn't, in fact, succeed because of that album, or indeed, anything else he'd done instead.

Research suggests his success was a fluke, and actually the product of an already stronger local economy, rather than any reforms.

But the problem was, the whole concept of welfare to work had caught on in a big way.

Bill Clinton campaigned aggressively on welfare reform, and once in office, worked with Republicans to craft a bill that he bragged when signing it, would move millions into the workforce.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

But I hope this day will be remembered not for what it ended, but for what it began.

Now, spoiler alert, it's remembered for what it ended, not indeed what it began.

It is genuinely hard to think of a clip from the Clinton era that has aged worse than that, other than, of course, this 1 from his inaugural ball.

That they let that sexual predator anywhere near Kevin Spacey.

The point is, Clinton's welfare reform created the TANF program, and in doing so, it brought about some major and catastrophic changes.

First, it shifted the funding to a block grant.

Basically, instead of the federal government having oversight and sharing the cost of the program, each year, it would just give states a lump sum of money.

But in doing so, it crucially didn't establish any mechanism to increase that sum over time.

Meaning the amount that each state gets has not increased since 1996.

And because it hasn't been adjusted for inflation or population changes, the real value of the funding has actually fallen by 40% since then.

So, it wasn't worth that much in the mid-90s, and it's worth even less now.

Think of it like a casingle of Chumbawamba's tub thumping.

And I know, if you're under 30, you think I'm having a stroke right now, but I swear, everything I just said is a real word.

--LAUGHTER --The big promise of these block grants was that they give states the flexibility to spend it however they felt worked best for them.

The only real requirement was that it had to be used for at least 1 of 4 incredibly broad purposes.

Providing assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives, fine.

Promoting job preparation, work, and marriage, okay.

Preventing and reducing the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies, seems a bit weird.

And encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.

So immediately you can see, that not only is some of that incredibly moralistic, it's crucially a pretty broad mandate.

And states have taken advantage of that latitude.

For instance, some have appropriated TANF money for college scholarships that can end up going to middle-class students.

Since 2007, Michigan has spent around $100 million each year in welfare money on college aid, much for benefiting families well above the poverty line.

And the state has justified this by saying that college aid helps prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies, which of course makes sense, doesn't it?

College is famously a place where no 1 fucks.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma was at 1 point spending millions in TANF dollars on marriage counseling classes, including 1 called Forever For Real.

It's the most important decision you can make in your life to marry somebody.

So, you know, who wouldn't want a closer and stronger relationship?

Once we decided that we were ready to move forward in our relationship, we wanted to protect what we had.

We know that our relationship won't always be easy, but it will be forever.

Now relationships come with instructions.

First, the chemistry between that couple is very much on the charts.

And it doesn't help that they tried to set the mood by lighting candles when the rest of the room is lit like the freezer aisle at a Kroger.

1 reporter who attended 1 of those classes found participants were shocked to learn they'd been paid for with welfare dollars because they consider themselves pretty good and financially stable.

But because, remember, supporting a two-parent household is 1 of the 4 purposes TANF funds can be used for, what Oklahoma did is completely legal.

And while they eventually ended that program in 2016, that was only after 17 years of spending TANF dollars on it.

And at its absolute worst, TANF money can be used in actively harmful ways, like funding crisis pregnancy centers.

We've talked about them before on this show.

They are basically fake abortion clinics designed to persuade people to see pregnancies through to term, often by propagating misinformation.

And yet, at least 10 states have siphoned millions of TANF dollars to pay for them.

Up until last year, Texas had directed 45 million in TANF funds to these clinics.

And just listen to some of the misinformation that 1 of them was telling people.

At a center in the Dallas area, a volunteer told our producer they don't offer abortions, adding, abortions can cause infertility.

When asked about the abortion pill, the volunteer said, my job is not to scare you.

She then pointed to a small plastic model like this, saying, can you imagine 1 of these in your panties?

Your tax dollars, which were meant to help poor families, instead went to someone uttering the single grossest sentence in their history of words.

The only proper response to which is, can you imagine how much of a weirdo you'd have to be to say the word panties to a stranger while showing them your collection of Russian nesting fetuses?

And look, I'm not saying states don't give any TANF funds to needy families, but in many cases, they seem pretty far down the list of priorities.

In Oklahoma, sight of those sterile marriage classes, the state was spending just 9 percent of its TANF block grant on cash assistance.

And 1 way states managed to keep their TANF rolls incredibly lean is to set the barrier to access them insurmountably high.

In more than 25 states, a family of 3, living at half the federal poverty line, earns too much to qualify for TANF, which is just absurd.

Just listen to these women in Mississippi, who were told that they were too rich to qualify.

We are who those programs are supposed to help.

When you were rejected for TANF, for making too much money, how much were you making?

It couldn't have been any more than $11 per hour.

Rent, utilities, transportation, like, how do I make so much money with 3 kids?

Rent, utilities, transportation, like, how do I make so much money?

Because it's ridiculous that a parent of 3 struggling to make ends meet has too much money to receive TANF assistance, while the state was more than happy to shovel cash toward both Brett Favre and Ted DiBiase, a wrestler whose signature pose is, -"Hey, everyone, I just robbed an ATM." -$1, 000, 000.

But it's not just that the income threshold can be prohibitively low.

It's that the application process itself can be deeply invasive.

For instance, states are required to offset any TANF money that they give to single mothers by chasing down the biological fathers for child support.

Money that the government then often keeps for itself.

So in some states, single mothers applying for public assistance are forced to identify the father of their child, his eye color, his license plate number, and the exact date when they got pregnant, often under penalty of perjury.

Which is the most humiliating way to identify the father of your child that doesn't involve Maury fucking Povich.

But there is 1 more twist here, because even if you qualify and are able to get assistance, it can be extremely easy to then lose it.

Not only do some states set time limits for how long you can get TANF, Arizona kicks you off after just a year, the money comes with an obligation to perform work activities, like job searching and training, the recipients have to engage in for a certain number of hours each week.

But for struggling parents, which this program is for, remember, that can be very difficult, especially if they don't have access to childcare.

I've lost the cash assistance 3 or 4 times due to the fact that, you know, no transportation, nobody to watch my son.

How do you take a kid into a job and ask for an application?

It's not easy to take your kid along into a job interview.

That is why most job applications don't come with a bonus big maze and a crayon.

And it's not like her state welfare office is unaware that she has a child.

They may even know the exact date he was conceived for some fucking reason.

And if you fail to meet your obligations, states can be pretty unforgiving in cutting you off.

Just listen to 1 woman who was kicked off assistance, despite having an objectively solid excuse.

Kimberly Thompson spent 2 and a half months in the hospital last summer after an infection ravaged her body.

Nearly half of that time, she was in a coma.

Adding insult to injury, though, While she was comatose, the county kicked her off government assistance.

Well, I was in a coma, and I didn't report in.

So, since I didn't report in, they just cut it all off.

Finding out you've lost your government assistance has got to be 1 of the worst things you could possibly hear when waking up for a coma, along with, actually, we call him President Trump now, and most of the dogs you knew are dead.

And the thing is, all of this, The multiple hoops you have to jump through before getting assistance, and the requirements you have to meet to keep it, is for an abysmally small amount of money.

In 15 states, cash benefit levels don't even reach 20% of the poverty line, which is about $386 for a family of 3 per month.

And if you're thinking, well, maybe states just don't have the money, not only have you seen the bullshit that some of them spend it on instead, but you should know, perhaps, the most shocking thing that some states spend TANF money on is absolutely nothing at all.

As of last year, states were sitting on 5.2 billion dollars in unspent TANF funds.

Tennessee alone was hoarding 790 million.

The largest pool of unspent welfare funds in the country.

And you know, it's like the famous saying goes, everything's bigger in Tennessee.

Oh, no, why is someone writing down everything I'm saying?

Scratch that from the record, I sound like an idiot.

If you don't stop writing, I'll fuck you up so silly, you'll be holding pens in your mouth, bitch.

And when you put all of this together, it is no wonder that most people on TANF don't, in fact, go from welfare to work.

In 2018, only 1 in 4 TANF cases closed because clients found jobs.

By and large, the rest were kicked off for 1 of the many bullshit reasons that we've mentioned tonight.

Basically, TANF lifts people out of poverty, the same way 1 of those arcade claw games lifts stuffed animals out of the machine, which is to say, it usually just drops them right back where they started, and in many ways, the whole process is a giant fuck you to kids.

Now, the good news is, there are things that we could do here if we wanted to.

We've talked before about some of the big, broader changes that would help alleviate the pain of poverty, but even when it just comes to TANF, There are options.

level and loosen some of the requirements to make it so easy to lose assistance.

And if we're gonna keep doing block grants, which I would argue we absolutely shouldn't, they should at least be adjusted for inflation and population growth with a certain amount required to be spent on direct cash assistance.

Look, the wild thing here is, our current system was created under the assumption that poor families simply couldn't be trusted to collect welfare honestly.

But the past couple of decades have proven that it's actually politicians and government officials who've been relentlessly abusing this system.

To borrow a phrase, we've been feeding the alligators in state government, and that has bred dependency.

So we need to fundamentally rework things so that this money, and ideally much more, can go where it is badly needed.

And if any lawmakers think that that sounds too hard and attempted to take a pass on it, I have a song with a powerful message that I'm pretty sure will inspire you.

Work for it, work for it ♪ -♪ Work for it, work for it ♪ -♪ Turn your dreams into reality ♪ -♪ Turn your dreams into reality ♪ -♪ Work for it, work for it

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TANF: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)