[Faith & Hunger] Defining the struggle to raise welfare benefits

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Defining the struggle to raise welfare benefits
 
It seems to me that we have to figure out how to do more than mobilize our  
standard troops in order to win an increase in welfare benefits - especially if 
 we want something more than a token 5 or 10% increase in the basic grant.
 
This will be a topic of discussion at the annual ES2 strategy meeting this  
Monday July 9th at Emmanuel Baptist Church, 275 State (I believe we will deal  
with the welfare grant around 12:45 or so.)
 
I recently saw for the first time in year's the Ben Kingsley movie on  
Gandhi. It reminded me of the need to stimulate popular movements to express  
outrage about poverty.
 
It would be helpful to develop some creative multimedia, multiconstituency  
approaches to the campaign to raise welfare benefits. We need to mobilize young 
 people, the faith community, welfare participants and hopefully some unions  
and non traditional allies. We need to create a buzz about this in the  
community. We need teachins, videos, radio shows, op eds, newsletters, walks,  
rallies, concerts, celebrity appearances, direct action, internet, posters, art,  
songs, etc.
 
We need to figure how to force the Spitzer administration to confront this  
issue, not just beg his staff for charity.
 
Below is an op ed that I wrote this morning to put on paper some of my  
initial thoughts on the interconnection of this issue. (As always, way too  long)
 
 
Jumpstart the war on poverty and global warming by raising welfare  benefits 
By Mark Dunlea, Associate Director of Hunger Action Network of  NYS 
A generation of children has grown up since the last time New York  lawmakers 
raised welfare benefits in 1990 
Welfare benefits have now fallen to less than half of the poverty level.  
Three in ten residents in upstate cities like Albany, Buffalo, Rochester and  
Syracuse live below the official poverty line – probably half live below the  
real poverty level. And nearly 10% live on less than half of poverty – what is  
known as extreme poverty. 
Welfare has long been the bastard child of American politics, even among  
liberals – abandoned, unloved, left to fend for itself. Pardon my French but  
even the organized left becomes queasy when it turns to welfare. Many who will  
protest about the war or toxic dumps or women’s rights or racism or corporate  
power don’t embrace welfare rights – even though welfare is directly tied to 
all  those issues - because they buy into the myths that welfare doesn’t work, 
it’s a  bandaid, it’s a bad program so why spend time trying to improve it. 
It is also true that if you ask the average welfare participant what they  
want, they’ll tell you of course we need higher benefits, there’s no way you 
can  pay the landlord, utility company and grocer on what welfare gives you, but 
what  I really want is a job, a living wage job that will allow me to support 
my  family. 
Welfare benefits should be raised because it is the right thing to do.  And a 
state as rich as ours should not force its most vulnerable to living in  
abject poverty. 
When Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton teamed up to tear apart one of the  
cornerstones of the New Deal – the Aid to Families with Dependent Children –  
welfare participants were far more supportive of the change than the  professional 
anti-poverty advocates. Many participants even supported workfare.  “So what 
if I have to push a broom or rake leaves for six months? As long as  there is 
a job at the end.” Their hopes turned to despair when they discovered  that 
they only thing waiting for them after six months was more garbage to  shovel. 
Hunger Action Network was formed twenty-five years ago due to what George  
Bush described as voodoo economics. Shortly after President Reagan’s first  
budget was passed the lines began forming at the church doors and community  halls 
with parents asking for some food for their children. We assumed that once  
Congress realized what their budget was doing the problem would be corrected. 
We  were wrong. There are now more than three thousand food pantries and soup  
kitchens in the state feeding more the two million New Yorkers  annually. 
Cutting taxes for rich made the rich at lot richer. It made most of us  
poorer. Many New Yorkers just barely kept their heads above the rising tide of  
wealth for those at the top, while property taxes soared and public services  
were cut.  
Raising welfare benefits isn’t the only way to end poverty in our state.  It 
is just the most critical foundation block. A good start would be to catch up  
with the cost of living since 1990. 
As even Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver recently admitted, the failure to  
raise welfare benefits is directly tied to the corruption of power and money  
that has a stranglehold on the state capitol. The changes enacted in welfare in  
1996 not only imposed stringent work requirements on participants but also  
provided the state with the funds needed to raise welfare benefits. Instead,  
duplicating the three card Monte game that is used with the lottery funds,  
welfare dollars were diverted to the general state budget; not surprisingly,  
corporate welfare spending under the guise of economic development continued to  
spiral upwards as our children fell deeper into poverty. All this despite five 
 court rulings – including by the state’s highest courts – over more than a  
decade that welfare benefits are illegally low. (A tiny increase in the 
shelter  allowance for children was adopted in 2003 to try to resolve the case – 
but it  was so minuscule that the litigation continues.) 
In America, poor people are blamed for being poor – rather than blaming  
politicians and the economic system. Nowhere is the blame more institutionalized  –
 and punishment imposed – than in our welfare system. 
We also need to admit that New York’s unique county-state partnership in  
running the welfare system isn’t working. Too often it seems that the counties’  
prime motivation is to cut costs (and their 25% contribution) by denying  
benefits to people – and all Governors, from liberal to conservative, lack the  
political courage to make the counties comply with the law. (The best solution  
would be to just eliminate the welfare bureaucracy and treat welfare for the  
poor like we treat welfare for corporations, homeowners, students, farmers – 
but  that is too controversial). 
For decades now politicians have told us that the solution to job  creation 
and economic prosperity is to throw money at businesses. This has  greatly 
helped CEO but not the rest of us. And especially in upstate New York,  many 
residents, especially young people, are fleeing for opportunities  elsewhere. 
It is time to start rebuilding from the bottom up. We need to raise  welfare 
benefits. We need to make the minimum wage a living wage. We need tax  
fairness, not more tax cuts for the wealthy. The poorest New Yorkers now pay  twice 
as much of their income for state and local taxes as the wealthy. If we  went 
back to the tax system that existed before voodoo economics 95% of New  Yorkers 
would get a tax cut – and we would raised nearly $8 billion in  additional 
tax revenues. 
One area that we need to invest those extra dollars is in global warming.  
American politicians are still nowhere close to taking the actions needed to try 
 to reduce the devastating impact that is about to hit us like a tsunami. It 
is  the poor – at home and abroad – that will be harmed most by climate  
change. 
The best short-term investment is in reducing the amount of energy we use  
through energy conservation measures. Insulating our homes can put an army of  
people to work – learning carpentry and construction skills at the same time – 
 while lowering their energy bills. Improving our mass transit system say to 
the  level of most third world countries would make it easier for poor people 
to get  better paying jobs. 
Buying locally – rather than importing tomatoes from California or the  
latest gizmo from China – saves energy while creating local jobs and helping  local 
farmers. We need to overhaul the federal farm bill to reflect the  realities 
of today’s farms and rural communities. Paying welfare to primarily  corporate 
farmers is one reason why calories are cheap and nutrition is  expensive in 
America – and why obesity among children is growing while family  farms 
disappear. 
Combating global warming means rebuilding our upstate cities rather than  
spending tax dollars to subsidize suburban sprawl and its enormous energy waste.  
It is no coincidence that our highest epidemics of poverty are in our inner  
cities. 
Another easy solution to poverty is universal health care, particularly a  
Medicare for All type system that eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars 
 annually that is wasted on our irrational system of private health 
insurance.  The rest of the world figured this out a long time ago. Not only do they 
spend a  lot less money that we do, but they have better health care systems 
based on  measures such as infant mortality, the number of doctor visits, and  
longevity. 
We certainly need radical surgery on our system of economic development.  It 
makes no sense to just blindly throw money at politically connected  
corporations in the name of job creation. At a minimum, we need to finally enact  some 
real accountability for the billions of dollars we are handing out,  ensuring 
that real living wage jobs are being created. But more importantly, we  need 
to give New York citizens the power and opportunity to democratically  decide 
how we can best build our economy to produce sustainable jobs that reduce  
global warming while providing a decent standard of living for all New  Yorkers. 
There are of course other issues that need to be addressed in solving  
poverty – child care, education, job training, and affordable housing. One  
suggestion is for Governor Spitzer to follow the lead of NYC Mayor Bloomberg and  to 
establish a poverty commission to lead the fight. Certainly poor people by  
themselves lack the political clout to force change. Mahatma Gandhi's said that “
A nation's  greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” With 
the US leading the world – and NY leading the nation –  in income inequality, 
so far we are measuring pretty  poorly.



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