A scandal has engulfed an anti-poverty program in Illinois. Sunday's Chicago Tribune features a long and engrossing article about how a 14-year-old state-Federal program started out with the best of intentions. Costing $750-million-a-year, it was supposed to provide poor parents with subsidized baby sitters to help them work their way out of poverty. Unfortunately, the program's nonprofit administrator, Illinois Action for Children, failed to vet potential baby sitters with, well, the same care that most middle-class moms take when looking for sitters. The program used more than a few rapists, sex offenders, and violent felons, the Tribune reported. About half of the subsidized sitters worked in the Chicago area. As the Tribune explains: "The state Department of Human Services poorly vetted baby sitters for years - and when a 2009 law forced better checks, it took nearly 18 months to start them, the newspaper's investigation of the Child Care Assistance Program found. "Also, despite...(Read Full Post)