Workers World
July 24, 1997: Welfare & starvation The Clinton NO
WELFARE LAW
The PRESIDENT
who took away the GLASS STEAGALL ACT that protected you, giving you a MAJOR
DEPRESSION/ RECESSION, took away WELFARE TOO.
"When we tolerate what we know to be wrong--when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened -- when we fail to speak up and speak out -- we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice."-- Robert Francis Kennedy
"Let them call me a rebel and I welcome it; I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of demons should I make a whore of my soul". - Thomas Paine
"By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy -- indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction."-- William Osler
It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God's will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you – try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God's will yourself!"-- Thomas Merton
It's time to kick the movement to overturn
the”welfare reform” law into high gear. Aug. 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the cruel law
repealing the 60-year-old federal welfare system. A few weeks later, Aug. 22 the cut-off of food stamps for millions
of people happened and immediately, casualties among the poor, the jobless,
non-citizen immigrants began mounting. No one could afford heat. Deaths from
freezing became common.
Tufts University and Second Harvest, the nation's biggest
emergency food provider, released a joint study calling the welfare law's
food-stamp cuts “an unprecedented threat to the food security of poor
Americans.” Put simply, people could starve. Or freeze or both.
Under the law, legal immigrants previously receiving food stamps were
cut off on leaving some 500,000 people
hungry. In addition, about a million childless adults lost their food stamps
for 33 out of every 36 months. New income-eligibility requirements robbed food
stamps from an additional 10 percent of all U.S. households, where the coupons
had enabled the working poor to feed themselves and their children.
The law's political thrust was aimed at welfare recipients-forcing
them onto workfare to drive down wages and weaken unions. But most of the law's
dollar cuts are in food stamps and related programs. Some $28 billion is being
cut from food stamps.
The result, according to the Tufts study, is that some 24 billion
pounds of food per year will be withdrawn from the poor; between 1997 and 2002.
That is the equivalent of withholding three meals a day for a year from
everyone in Texas.
Up until now, with the welfare law's gradual phase-in, the ruling
class has for the most part dodged dramatic repercussions. Their grace period
is now ending. The grim specter of hunger looms.
People must eat. The bosses and their servants in the government
are in for a surprise if they expect poor people to submit quietly. The
working-class and progressive movement must raise the cry: Overturn the welfare
law! Food, income, union rights and health care for all!” (found online.)
POSTER Anita Sands ADDS: “many seniors do not have enough
employment 'quarters' in their lifetime to get a decent Social Security check.
Those folklorico, 60's hippies today called Baby boomers, raised children as
single mothers. They did not ..could not... work with all those babies
as Daycare costs were high, not subsidized and for that reason, I myself stayed
home to raise 4 children. Today at age 70, I get 340$ a month from Social
Security .. so low because I had no work quarters. Heart and Diabetes problems
finally (three turndowns,) got me an additional $280 disability check. Did you know that any senior who has
disability stipend is ALLOWED TO GET FOOD STAMPS? The combined amounts give me
620$ a month out of which I must pay rent and utilities. There is no money for
food. MEALS on WHEELS wants 8$ a meal! I live miles from a market. Senior ‘free ride’ a public program is
5$ to get to a market. Buy 50$ worth of food, markets send a van, but I buy
food in 3$ increments. WALK TO MARKET? I am heart disabled, there's no way. I
was gifted with a very old man’s bike but am afraid to use it. The two mile
ride is so exhausting I’m afraid I might die of a heart attack right there in
the street. (I carry full ID and relatives’ phone#’s.) But I have used bike as
there’s no way to get the mile to a market. The nearest cheese giveaway is 6
miles off in Van Nuys. Twelve miles round trip. My grown children are no help
as they all left California, out of sight out of mind. So whether you call the
food stamp program Cal Fresh or EBT, I call it USELESS as there's none of it
for this senior and many more like me who because of CURRENT RULES cannot get
food stamps, meals on wheels or rides. And
we will never tell our children about any of this so as not to worry them.
That
might motivate you to “HELP
A GERIATRIC” just a few inventive, fun, easy things
to help out.
Our POSTER is ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ,
Los Angeles Writer, Futurist and Astrologer. Catch up with her websites TRUTHS GOV WILL HIDE & NEVER TELL
YOU, also The
FUTURE, WHAT'S COMIN' AT YA! FRUGAL LIFE STYLE TIPS,
HOW TO SURVIVE the
COMING GREAT DEPRESSION, and Secrets of Nature, HOLISTIC, AFFORDABLE HEALING.
Also ARTISANRY FOR
EXPORT, EARN EUROS....* Anita is a FUTURE READER in more ways
than ONE She can do your NATAL HOROSCOPE, FUTURE READING. Write her at
astrology@earthlink.net ). Get a 15$ natal horoscope "my money/future
life/ mate/ sweetheart/ child destiny" reading now + copy horoscope as a
Gif file graphic! No smarter, more accurate astrologer out there!
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