Hundreds of thousands stand for children

by Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the June 1, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of thousands of children, their parents and their advocates are streaming into the nation's capital to "stand for children" June 1 - and well they might.

The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) has charged that children have been among those who have suffered the most from cutbacks in human needs programs under the Republican Contract on America. CDF says they have been targeted again in the 1997 Budget Resolution that has cleared both houses of Congress.

In her call for massive participation in the June 1 action, Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of CDF, said, "It is time to draw a line in the sand" for doing no harm to children and putting children first "with our actions and not just our words."

Edelman characterized 1995 as a "year of pervasive, preventable and unacceptable child suffering, death, neglect and abuse." She invited all who have "had enough of political leaders from all parties [who use] children as political props and pawns ... to come stand with us" on June 1.

Stand for Children coincides with the Republican drive to push welfare and Medicaid "reform" through Congress before the Nov. 5 elections. Last Wednesday Republicans introduced legislation in the House that would cut more than $700 billion from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Medicaid and other lifeline programs for children, seniors and the disabled by 2002. The legislation not only cuts funding for these programs, it terminates them as federal entitlements guaranteed to all who meet federally-defined eligibility requirements.

CDF says that the GOP legislation would deny Supplemental Security Income benefits to at least 300,000 children with disabilities by 2002 and would repeal current Medicaid guarantees for five million children ages 13 to 18. Changes in Earned Income Tax Credit would leave about 3.5 million families with children worse off than they are now.

Welfare rights activists are particularly concerned about the "block granting" of welfare contained in the legislation. Edelman says the proposal, which gives states a fixed lump sum to fund welfare programs, can be compared to destroying the foundation of a house - that by shifting control of programs like AFDC and Medicaid to the states, the very concept that the poor, the disabled and the aging are entitled to a federally guaranteed social safety net is overturned.

"Cuts in funding are like rearranging the furniture in a house but block grants tear at its foundations," she told a New York rally last fall. Edelman said it had taken years to win these entitlements and that it would be "very difficult to win them back if they are lost."

Last September Democratic senators supported - and President Clinton endorsed - welfare legislation that called for block grants. However, he was forced to retreat in the face of public opinion, sparked in part by an open letter from Edelman reminding the president that the decision to accept or reject the legislation was a "defining moment" for his administration.

It now appears that another defining moment has come. Only days ago Clinton expressed a willingness to allow Wisconsin to implement its "W-2 Program" - legislation that even its supporters admit will eliminate most cash benefits. Organizers of Stand for Children plan to cause the president to reconsider his remarks.

Marcus White, program director of the Interfaith Conference of Milwaukee, describes W-2 as a precursor of what is to follow if states are given block grants and then allowed to "design their own welfare programs." He said that although W-2 will help some working families it is a "sad fact" that it drives half of those presently on AFDC deeper into poverty.

Bill Dempsey, director of the Campaign for a Sustainable Milwaukee, says that state efforts to deal with welfare are a back door attempt by the right wing to accomplish piecemeal what they've not yet been able to accomplish on the national level. "The best way to end 'welfare as we know it' is to end poverty as we know it," he said.