The Personal Responsibility Act & Life As An Activist Mom on Welfare - I love DU for letting me in on the thoughts, feelings, talents, and power of people who care about people. I am re-posting a LTTE to Cynthia Tucker written by DUer "mntleo2" after Ms. Tucker's Editorial
"Congressional Hurricane Relief Comes At Expense of Poor" was printed in the Atlanta Constitution.
Dear Ms. Tucker:
I would like to thank you. I read with interest your article about pitting hurricane victims against low income people. I am an activist with WROC, Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition in Seattle, a 501 C non-profit:
http://www.wroc.org . I am also a welfare recipient myself and I can tell you the things of which we speak are things people like me live every day. I can say that we poor are appalled and saddened that we are now having to compete with these unfortunate people because we care about their plight.
We are competing for tax dollars with one another while the elite do not even pay taxes or pay less than three percent (and remember we have two of the richest men in the world living in our state), while we poor pay more than 17% of our income in taxes that are often hidden in regressive taxes.WROC has been working hard for more than 20 years in order to dispel the myths about the welfare mother. We are a multicultural and intergenerational group who speaks day in and day out in order to raise this country's conscience about the welfare parent's plight and the blatant sexism, racism, and classism that uses her as a political football for the class warfare for which she and her children are being used. My mantra when I speak to churches, at marches and to other organizations is this: We did not start this war, the elite started it.
The Personal Responsibility Act passed in 1996 only values paid work and says that a minimum paying corporate sponsored McJob is "better" than being a parent. It says that to work for a corporate wage is the *only* way a low income mom can contribute to this society, that a daycare is a "better" place for her 3 month old baby, and a minimum wage job is more important than the needs of her children.When the Personal Responsibility Act was enacted (what most people call, 'Welfare Reform', I am *not* making the title up), it was assumed the only people who were going to be held "personally responsible" were the poor. Forget that at that time welfare was less than 3% of the budget, while the military at that time was almost half of the budget (with no war and pre 9/11). Forget that corporations paid less than 8% of the country's revenue, while the poor paid almost 30% and now corporations pay even less if anything at all, yet they are the ones getting the most benefit of the taxes we all pay. Forget that the average stay on welfare at that time was 2 years and the average family size was one adult and less than 2 children. Forget that "multi-generational welfare" was less than 2 percent among recipients and much of this was because these folks lived in racist, sexist, classist, repressed and depressed areas where there were few opportunities for anyone in poverty. Forget that more than 70% of the single parents on this program were and are victims of domestic violence. Forget that over 80% of the women on welfare were married at the time they bore their children and still are the ones who do not get any financial support from the other parent for the responsibility of parenthood either because (the other parent) he/she is sick, mentally ill, in prison, dead, or simply not anywhere to be found.What is grossly wrong about this picture is (in my opinion) the way we define work. It is all about funding and what is considered worthwhile. Unpaid work is considered "doing nothing". Corporations are "doing something" and working for minimum wage building some CEO's golden parachute while not even getting health benefits is "doing something". If what women have traditionally done for their communities is "doing nothing", we are in essence saying she is worthless. If hard work such as taking care of children, helping neighbors, building and networking communities, taking care of extended family and elders, as well as assisting unpaid in schools and other community projects is truly "doing nothing", we are saying outright in a law passed in 1996 that the contributions women have given to this world since time immemorial is not worth a damn thing, it is, "doing nothing"! The fact that most children going to Iraq today are from low income families, means the work of raising them was "doing nothing" as well. Thus family and community work is not worth supporting or considering, while Halliburton can go offshore and not pay a cent in taxes, LOSE almost 9 billion dollars without anyone batting an eye, they can pollute an entire community and expect We The People to clean up their dirty work, because they are "doing something", but we are not...
In 1996, many of us tried to tell the country that the Personal Responsibility Act was not just about the poor. We also said that something was very wrong if we are passing laws aimed only at only one segment of society. We (religious communities, social justice agencies, and human services people) said that passing laws targeting only one class in this country that did not apply to everyone, has nothing to do with equality, or freedom, it is not even American! Sadly we were considered idealistic morons.
We watched as the rest of the country wildly applauded not realizing that they were next on the "you are not worth anything and you are not worth services, only the elite and corporate interests are worth spending upon" front.You do not have to take my word upon the statistics I have given to you. They are right there in the census bureau, they are in the DSHS statistics, they are everywhere. If I am wrong about them, I am not too far wrong. Go look them up yourself and you will find the class war has been going on for a long time now.
The sad part about it is, now they are coming for the proverbial 'you' because 'you' thought that law did not apply to 'you' and so 'you' did not say anything.Sincerely, "mntleo2"
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