January
2007
Protest Cuts to Assistance for Children
As you may already know, the Governor of California proposes to cut children entirely from cash assistance if their parents don’t work enough hours while on welfare and if their parents have successfully finished the 5-year welfare period but cannot earn enough on their own. The law today permits children to remain covered even if their parents are not.
In an effort to let your voice be heard in Sacramento, we are providing a statement to the Governor that you may sign insisting that no moral good can ever come from cutting many children on welfare from all funding.
PLEASE take a moment to sign onto this statement, a joint effort by PCU and California Church IMPACT. Please provide us with your name, address, and faith connection (optional). Just send that information to: . PCU is collecting and organizing your information to add to the list that will accompany this declaration that is being sent to the Governor. Please sign on by January 19.
WILL IT BE CALIFORNIA STATE POLICY THAT THE “SINS” OF THE PARENTS ARE VISITED UPON THE CHILDREN?? WE PROTEST THIS UNGODLY POLICY!!
When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that California would save hundreds of millions of dollars in the proposed state budget, some were pleased—until they discovered these savings would be realized by cutting cash assistance to all children if their parents did not meet the work hour requirement for CalWORKs, the state’s welfare program. Not only that, but programs that continue to support children at the point when adult family members “termed out” of welfare after five years would also be eliminated.
Since when—ethically speaking—do we balance a budget on the backs of infants and toddlers?
The steady erosion of support for those at the bottom of the well—a growing population in our state—is hard enough on adults who cannot find work here that pays them a living wage. When we decide to save money by slashing money for kids from our budget, we cross a moral boundary into reckless disregard for our shared humanity.
Parents in many families cannot work due to a variety of problems. Even if we were inclined to disdain these hard-pressed neighbors of ours as the “undeserving” poor—and Jesus had no such category, we should recall—how could we ever justify harming their children? The bold assertion from the Governor’s office that his Draconian measure will “stress personal responsibility” brutally ignores the realities faced by today’s CalWORKS clients. And can he explain how punishing children, from infants to teens, can possibly offset the alleged irresponsibility of the parents? What kind of moral calculus is this?
Recent reports show California to be in 34th place with respect to the quality of care for our children. Our state is no longer a good place to grow up. How will we face ourselves in the mirror, knowing we are permitting children to be used as cost-saving measures despite horrendous consequences to their young lives? What will we do when we see three-year-olds begging at the sides of our roads? How will we respond when toddlers are found eating our garbage? Who will rescue the children who may be abandoned by desperate parents, or worse, sold to child abusers as children already are in Third World countries? If we think that none of this could happen here, we are deluding ourselves.
California lives in mortal fear of tax increases. That is the bottom line, the rationale for all budget and program choices and the major rallying call against preserving a social safety net. But people of faith affirm that every human being is sacred; we reject performing ritual child sacrifice in the public square just to ensure that the wealthy keep their wealth at the mortal expense of those with no wealth apart from God’s blessing. We people of faith insist that the Governor revise this portion of his budget immediately to restore an ethical center to our fiscal choices. The Governor calls himself a man of faith, but he seems to have missed an essential teaching: “Suffer the little children” does not actually mean “make little children suffer.” Revise your budget, Governor Schwarzenegger!! There is no other choice in a humane society.