California’s economic crisis is forcing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
to impose catastrophic budget cuts to life-sustaining social safety net programs,
cuts that will greatly impact the most vulnerable in society.
Photo by Luke Thomas
May 31, 2009
No one disagrees that we are in a severe recession. But I fear that in the stampede to balance the budget, California will eliminate or reduce many of the public assistance programs serving as social safety nets for children, the poor, and the sick and the elderly. Such programs include public housing, hunger and nutrition programs, childcare and child support, etc. Safety nets are designed to keep the down-and-out afloat during an economic slump. Families, local communities, and charities will be insufficient to take up the slack for lost or reduced publicly-funded programs. And a long term recession could create a lost generation of people stuck in unemployment lines for so long that they become unemployable. Look what happened to Japan’s “lost” or “suffering” generation.
For over 100 years America’s social safety net has expanded dramatically. At the turn of the last century, Americans still viewed themselves as “rugged individualists.” The family, the community, and charities formed the basis of the social safety net at that time. This all changed in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal began by establishing Social Security in 1935 and a modern day federal welfare program began with a small program called Aid to Dependent Children. During the Johnson administration in the 1960s, Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, and other programs were established.
Much of America’s welfare programs remained largely unchanged until 1996, when a Republican Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a sweeping welfare reform law that is still the subject of much controversy in public policy circles.
The latest data (2005) shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively had as much income as the bottom 150 million. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person earned in the bottom half. With the rapidly growing unemployment, I suspect the 2010 census will show that this gap has widened even further. But these are just numbers. We’ve heard the reports of executives of failed corporations receiving millions of dollars in compensation juxtaposed with daily articles about people facing home foreclosures, loss of benefits, pay reductions, and layoffs. And I bet each of you know friends or acquaintances who are in a precarious financial situation.
Clearly, budget cuts are necessary. But tax increases should be seriously considered to ensure a continuation of a social safety net. It is time for our politicians and the public to step back and carefully consider the short and long term consequences of the proposed budget cuts.
The Hunger Site
June 4, 2009 at 8:58 am
We clearly need to cut our insane military spending. We need to go after the criminals and corrupt officials who duped us into our current financial mess.
Municipalities and honest Americans should refuse sacrificing any more than they already have and demand justice– even print our own currency if need be.
What is needed most now is combined imagination, integrity, and leadership. Although America has plenty of good people with solutions to every problem, the majority of us have become too docile and brainwashed.
Could this idea be possibly considered: Imagine not renewing Microsoft licenses for each and every city computer– and replacing the software with Linux! How much would the savings add to our shorted General Fund?
Crazy, huh? Maybe it is too late.
Who cares about a tumor when your legs have been lopped off?
Still I wonder: How many stones can be turned looking for answers to keep our poor, sick, young and old from living meaner and shorter lives?
June 1, 2009 at 8:14 am
“No one disagrees that we are in a severe recession.”
– Ralph E. Stone
It may be more than that. We may be facing the collapse of the post-WWII global economy, a second Great Depression.
A second wave of foreclosures is on the horizon. The American automobile industry is bankrupt. The nation’s leading banks are on the brink of insolvency. The federal government has reached the limits of its capacity for bail-outs. The state of California will run out of money at the end of this month. Economies of nations around the world are tottering.
Individuals, companies, and nations have been living beyond their means for two generations. This practice has turned the global economy into a giant Ponzi scheme. It is now imploding.
At the same time, the world is faced with a crisis in climate, triggered by the over-carbonization of the atmosphere by industrial civilization for the last 200 years.
To top things off, the political structures of many nations, including the U.S., are no longer capable of readily adapting to big changes and providing effective and intelligent leadership.
This is a deadly combination – economic collapse, environmental disaster, and political ineptitude. These three factors, acting in concert, have brought down entire civilizations in the past, including the Roman Empire.
We need to do more than lobby for smaller budget cuts. We need to re-think everything.
We don’t have much time to do it.