Welfare bill threatens one million children: Child advocates, labor leaders demand veto

by Fred Gaboury and Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the 27 July, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - Religious and charitable organizations, the labor movement and other defenders of the poor reacted with alarm to the Senate's vote to approve a welfare bill that will push one million children off the welfare rolls.

On July 23 the Senate passed by a bipartisan roll call vote legislation that abolishes the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children and imposes severe time limits on eligibility. GOP leaders hope to send the measure to President Clinton in early August.

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, said that both House and Senate versions of welfare legislation "contain the same fundamental flaws" as the bill President Clinton vetoed last year. She added that the same principle of "not hurting children require him to reject the current proposals."

Edelman called the measure a "false, anti-child, welfare reform plan" that would push more than a million children into poverty and leave millions more vulnerable to hunger, abuse, neglect, illness and unsafe child care.

In calling for Clinton to veto of the legislation, Marilyn Lenard, president of the Florida AFL-CIO, told the World that any reforms must be implemented with "compassion and a common sense approach. We can't just cut off children when there is no suitable alternative." Lenard said that while she believes that able bodied adults should work, there must be "adequate, living-wage jobs if the system is to work."

During floor debate, Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) characterized the legislation as "election year politics and rhetoric raised to the level of policy." Moseley-Braun told her colleagues the bill uses children as "the missiles and weapons in a policy assault on non-working parents." She said real welfare reform would "have a commitment to adequate job creation, to child care, job training and job placement."

In a letter written to all members of the House and Senate, Fr. Fred Kammer, president of Catholic charities USA, rebuked "those who would nullify America's 60-year covenant with its poor children and those who nurture them."

"Welfare reform is acutely needed," he wrote, but added that that the proposals incorporated in the legislation that has cleared both houses is "largely a sham designed to appease the ignorant and to pander to our worst prejudices in an election year."

Bread for the World (BFW) President David Beckmann denounced the bill as "immoral" and urged President Clinton to veto it. "This bill will push another one million kids into poverty. It cuts nutrition and welfare benefits by about $60 billion over the next six years," he told the World.

The legislation, he warned, "is not going to get people into jobs. Its not going to reduce teen pregnancy. Its just going to spawn more hunger and poverty." Beckmann charged the attack on welfare is "driven by election year gamesmanship ... the danger is that in this atmosphere of gamesmanship, [Clinton] might sign it."

Supporters of the legislation say churches and religious charities can make up for the $60 billion cuts in welfare and food stamps, BFW spokesperson, Katherine Smith, told the World. "That's completely unrealistic," she said. "There are 350,000 churches in the U.S. Do the math and you find that each church would have to add $150,000 to their annual budgets to make up for that cut in federal funding."

Stuart Campbell, Senior Program Director of the Coalition on Human Needs, which unites more than 100 church, labor, civil rights and community organizations in Washington called the legislation "Horrible." He told the World, "We are urging the president to veto it."

The Coalition, he said, staged a national call-in campaign to the White House on July 22 that generated thousands of calls. He denounced a provision that will deny all social welfare benefits to 300,000 documented immigrants.

"Immigrants are taxpayers and entitled to benefits like any other taxpayer," Campbell said. "No one comes to this country planning to be poor or disabled. They come looking for a better life."

Randy Arndt, a spokesperson for the National League of Cities which represents more than 135,000 local officials, told the World the league is opposed to terminating Aid to Families With Dependent Children as an entitlement open to all people in need.

Although slightly less brutal than legislation passed by the House, the Senate bill would terminate the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children and give states a lump sum of money to run its own welfare programs. The legislation would require the head of every family on welfare to go to work within two years or the family would lose benefits and lifetime benefits would be limited to five years.

Other provisions allow states to terminate payments to unmarried teenage parents and require mothers under 18 to stay in school and live with an adult. More than a quarter million disabled children will be thrown off cash assistance and almost all help for children of documented immigrants would be terminated. All mothers and older children who lose cash assistance due to time limits will lose guaranteed health coverage through Medicaid as well.

Welfare: the view from two who know

BALTIMORE

- Virginia Almony lives in O'Donnell Heights, as do her mother, sister and brother:

"I'm so darn angry. Let them [Congress] live on welfare for a while. The people that are making decisions for us don't know what it's like."

Almony said the two-year limit on benefits isn't long enough. "I started secretarial school last November and I went for three months. Then I went to community college to get my GED. Now I'm back in school again. I'm working my butt off but I still can't find a job."

Marlene Watson has lived in public housing more than 12 years. She has six children. "If they're going to cut us off, why don't they help some of these women find jobs? Most women here want to work but they don't have babysitters."

Almony said she can't afford to take a minimum wage job. "I'm a single mom. What am I supposed to do?"

- Les Bayless