WINTER SOLSTICE 1995 - Issue Number 34
As a nation, I believe we stand at a decisive crossroads. We must choose what kind of society we shall live in and pass on to our children: One where narrow self-interest is the guide for social policy, or one where community interest and justice for all serve as core values for our collective life.
In the current welfare debate, the discussion has taken a dangerous turn; it has moved from talk of whether to pull back from the basic social responsibilities of society to how much we should pull back. I believe that by embracing the narrow, self-serving premise that it is acceptable to pull back from these responsibilities, we are headed down the road to self-destruction.
The Budget Resolution passed by the U.S. House and Senate earlier this fall requires $894 billion in spending reduction by the years 2002. The cuts would come primarily from Medicare ($270 billion), Medicaid ($182 billion), other entitlements such as welfare ($175 billion) and from discretionary spending.
For example, the Personal Responsibility Act and the Family Self-Sufficiency Act would shift the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program to block grant status, thereby allowing states to withdraw from matching funding requirements, disenfranchise recipients, eliminate benefits and escape oversight responsibilities for whatever services they do offer. In addition, the House and Senate legislation would end any state responsibility to provide assistance to eligible people, determine the funding formula based on current federal spending rather than the number of children in need, and allow states to withdraw all matching funds while still receiving federal funds. This means if the number of low-income children in a state increases, as in a recession, there would be no additional funding to assist the increased number of children in need.
Other programs under attack include: Child nutrition, such as the Food Stamp Program and school lunches for low-income children; Chapter One education programs providing remedial assistance to disadvantaged children; The McKinney Homeless Program; Public housing, housing for the elderly and disabled, American Indian housing programs, rental certificates and rural housing; Student loans; Supplemental Security Income; Community Development Block Grant Program; Head Start; The Maternal Child Health Care Block Grant and the Preventive Health Care Block Grant, to name just a few.
On the state level, Gov. John Engler is also careening down the destructive path away from social responsibility and toward narrow self interest. To symbol ize the new direction of his social welfare policy, he has renamed the Michigan Department of Social Services as the Family Independence Agency (FIA). His latest plan to overhaul Michigan's welfare program does the following: Cut families off aid in sixty days for non-compliance; Eliminate public hearings on further policy changes in the FIA; Require mothers receiving public assistance to work within six weeks of having a child; Open Child Protection Services cases on anyone in non-compliance with the plan. While the plan successfully lowers the social safety net, threatens union jobs, and opens the door for children in poor families to be taken away from their parents, it fails to ensure the availability of jobs that pay a living wage and neglects to provide for adequate quality day care.
Propelled by fear and self-interest, many Christians have joined the full-scale assault being waged on low-income and marginalized people. In the name of "family values" and self-sufficiency, they have aligned themselves with the affluent and the privileged in opposition to the poor and the disenfranchised.
But the Christianity I know calls us to love our neighbor and care for those in need. In the famous gospel passage on the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25: 31-46), Jesus gives a clear message about how we are to treat our neighbor: "For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to meTruly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me." Jesus identifies with those whom narrow self-interest dehumanizes: For I was hungry and you eliminated the food stamp program; I was thirsty and you weakened the regulations protecting clean water; I was a stranger and you denied my children education; I was naked and you took away my housing subsidy; I was sick and you turned me away from the hospital; I was in prison and you cut my family's AFDC check.
The policies of the Christian Coalition and the Republican Contract with America promote a vision of American society based on an illusion of self-sufficiency and individuality. The gospel vision of the kingdom of God, on the other hand, is of a society founded on a just economic order, of a new human community that lives in humility with creation, of a culture where individual good is achieved through the common good. This vision is based on the belief that God wants all children to thrive, that all personsrich and poor alikeare made in God's image, that people are more important than the sum of their economic productivity. This vision of society is based on the belief that welfare reform must not focus on eliminating programs, but on eliminating poverty and the damage it inflicts on children, on their parents, and on the rest of society. It is based on the belief that successful welfare reform will depend ultimately upon finding not only a common ground of policy, but a common vision that inspires and upholds the common good. It is this vision of the common good to which Christians and others of faith and conscience must commit ourselves in the current welfare debate.
The Rev. Jodi Bushdiecker Atwood is a United Church of Christ minister and Co-Minister of Guild House Campus Ministry. Guild House is an interfaith, justice and peace campus ministry at the University of Michigan.
Persons interested in learning more about the realities of life in poverty are invited to take part in a Welfare Simulation Workshop sponsored by the Racial and Economic Justice Task Force of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Michigan Anti-Poverty Coalition, Welfare Rights Union, and Guild House Campus Ministry. The Welfare Simulation is a two-hour program of experiential learning in which participants role play the lives of low-income persons from various types of families. In the group discussion after the simulation, participants have a chance to reflect on their experiences and discuss the issues which impact the lives of low-income persons. Former participants have described the simulation as an eye-opening experience. Call Tobi Hanna-Davies at (313) 663-1860 to inquire about dates and locations of upcoming simulations.
Persons interested in taking action on welfare reform are invited to join a statewide coalition of religious, labor, environmental, education, social service and other public interest organizations at a:
State of the People Rally
January 17 · 5:30 PM
on the Capitol Steps in Lansing.
For more information, call (517) 374-6646.
Return to the Index of Synapse 34, Winter Solstice 1995