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- <text id=91TT0338>
- <title>
- Feb. 18, 1991: American Notes:Wisconsin
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Feb. 18, 1991 The War Comes Home
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 45
- American Notes
- WISCONSIN
- Shotgun Weddings?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson is no stranger to the
- carrot-and-stick approach to welfare: one state program
- withholds benefits from families whose kids cut class, another
- docks benefits from some recipients who don't work or get job
- training. But his Parental and Family Responsibility
- Initiative, a scheme linking welfare benefits to marriage and
- birth control, may be his most controversial idea yet.
- </p>
- <p> Thompson wants to cap funds for unmarried mothers at $440
- a month, the current limit for a single woman with one child.
- Benefits would not increase if the woman has additional
- children--unless she gets married. "It sounds like a
- state-sponsored shotgun wedding," one critic said. "The state
- has no business dictating who should get married or how many
- children they should have," said Margaret McMurray, a
- spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women. "This is
- Big Brotherism."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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