U.S. imperialist chieftain Clinton has said that he will sign
into law a Republican sponsored bill to "reform" welfare. Under
the new law, the federal program of Aid to Families With Dependent
Children will be eliminated and instead the states will receive annual
federal payments and use them to run their own systems. They can set
tighter time limits, for example and establish new requirements -
denying aid to parents who fail to immunize their children or keep
them in school. Welfare recipients who "refuse to work" will lose
benefits. The same will be true for single mothers who decline to
help find the fathers of their babies. Legal immigrants who are not
citizens will no longer be eligible for food stamps or other
assistance. And childless adults will be eligible for food stamps
for only three months in any three year period.
Rep. Timothy Roemer, one of the 37 House Democrats who urged
Clinton to sign this bill says that welfare recipients essentially
sign a contract pledging to improve themselves. "Caseworkers will
say 'Here's what you have to do. This is not something we just give
to you'." And that, he said, means "we've moved to a new paradigm."
Perhaps Rep. Roemer has forgotten his history. As every new
chapter in the anti-social offensive takes us backward in time,
this new Bill has taken us all the way back to England of 1830's
and the new Poor Laws that were enacted under much the same
circumstances and caused untold misery for years and led to the
rise of the Chartist Movement. As the cost of national poor relief
in England rose steadily from the 1790's to the 1830's, there was
clamor for reform of the system. The new economists of that era,
of whom Malthus was the most influential were against the poor
relief. We must, Malthus wrote "formally disclaim the right of the
poor to support...: To this end I should propose a regulation to be
made, declaring that no child born from any marriage, taking place
after expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no
illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should ever
be entitled to parish assistance."
Royal Commissions were pressed into operation to examine the
conditions of the workhouse. They gave extensive reports of a
demoralized labor class as a result of relief to the able bodied
poor. They recommended that relief to the able bodied poor must be
given only in well-regulated workhouses and should be such that the
amount paid to them should be less than the amount given to the
lowest paid worker from employment. It was assumed that, and this
was part of the inescapable logic of the free market, that there
would always be work at some rate of wages.
The arguments now being produced are almost identical to the
ones in the 1830's. Statistics of out-of-wedlock births (they have
increased from 28 percent in 1990 to 32.6 percent of all births in
1994) and changing the behavior of the poor are being cited.
"Tough love" is a phrase that is being bandied about, to show that
ultimately all this is being done for the good of the poor.
Charitable organizations and the Church are being asked to take
care of the poor and ultimately, privatize welfare itself.
Instead of saying that - we produce enough wealth in the
country to guarantee every man, woman and child in our society
their right to a livelihood - the argument is being turned on its
head. All this is done with the help of poll takers and with an eye
to winning elections. Thus we are told Clinton has calculated that
the number of votes he will lose from the "Democratic Left" if he
signs this bill, is far less than the votes he will gain from the
right.
The politicians would be well advised to read the history of
England and Europe in the decades after the Poor Law was enacted,
for this time the movements that may erupt may have very different
endings than the ones that took place in 1848.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
