At 07:01 AM 4/8/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>========================================================
>GOOD NEWS: THE WELFARE GAINS MADE IN THE LAST SIX YEARS
>========================================================
>- Nathan Newman
>
>
>Even as many of us organize against the punitive effects of welfare
>"deform" and other social attacks, we should not ignore the successes and
>gains we have made in the last decade. Too much focus on losses can lead
>not to action but to disempowerment, so this post will lay out some good
>news on our successes embodied in the federal budget.
This is obscene spin-doctoring on behalf of the reactionary Clinton. The
problem we are facing is cutbacks in state aid to needy families. It is
state funding not federal funding that goes into the AFDC program, which
has been overthrown. Any increase in federal funding is more than offset by
state cuts. The reason that these state cuts have been made is because the
Democratic White House functions as an extension of the Reaganite attack on
the safety net. Clinton offered no effective oppositon to the assault on
AFDC for the same reason that he pushed so hard for NAFTA. He is a tool of
big business.
Louis Proyect
