(C) Common Dreams
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Mr. Reagan's War on Poverty - The New York Times [1]
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Date: 1981-10-02
That he is asking Congress to cut another $13 billion in 1982 is the smaller part of it. He proposes cutting $80 billion more in 1983 and 1984, with $27.6 billion of the total coming from entitlement programs. The only way to achieve savings of that magnitude will be through drastic changes in how these programs are financed and whom they benefit.
Poor people, especially those able and willing to go to school and to work, will suffer from the cuts that have already gone into effect. Consider the changes Congress has approved in Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It has lowered the amount and duration of permissible outside earnings and slashed the allowances for work-related expenses like child care. Think what effects those changes are likely to have; encouraging poor parents to take jobs is not among them.
If the Administration persists in trying to wring so many more billions out of domestic spending, it has essentially three options. It could force still more working poor out of social programs by outlawing, not merely curtailing, outside earnings. It could reduce benefit levels by compelling recipients to put up some cash for food stamps or health care expenses. Or it could try to thrust more of the burden onto state and local governments.
The implications of these alternatives are obvious - and ominous. The new eligibility rules have already forced 11 percent of the 3.9 million families off welfare and reduced benefits for an additional 279,000. Does anyone really think the relief rolls contain many thousands more, even worse off, who are capable of surviving without help? Or that many Medicaid recipients could pay some health care costs? And if Washington lays off even more of the burden onto lower levels of government, it will be left with the cruel choice between raising taxes and lowering benefits.
Troubled both by the purpose and cost of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the budget director, David Stockman, says bluntly, ''Substantial parts of it will have to b e hea ved overboard.'' He leaves no doubt about the targets in Ronald R eagan's War on Poverty. Yet the threatened entitlement programs aren' t abstractions. They benefit millions of people, some lazy, yes, b ut many pitifully dependent, and others struggling people who w ant nothing more than toclimb to self-reliance. A sensible policy tow ard the poor, a just policy - a sound conservative policy -would b e to help them up.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/02/opinion/mr-reagan-s-war-on-poverty.html
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