[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 118 (Thursday, July 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10435-S10436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     CALIFORNIA: A SOCIETY THAT CUTS CHILD WELFARE BUT BOOSTS JAILS

  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I do not believe I have ever met Prof. 
Robert C. Fellmeth of the University of San Diego, but I read what he 
had to say in the Los Angeles Times about cutting back on assistance to 
the poor while, at the same time, we hand largess to the wealthy.
  Statistics differ somewhat, but the California situation mirrors the 
national situation.
  If we are doing what is politically popular, I do not know, but what 
we are doing is certainly wrong.
  What we need is not Senators and House Members who follow the latest 
public opinion poll on tax cuts or anything else, but people who try to 
lead, and sometimes do the unpopular, in order to reduce poverty in our 
country, to improve education and to do the things that are needed for 
a better future.
  The incredible increase in prison construction and incarceration has 
done nothing to decrease the crime rate in our country. If putting 
people in prison reduced the crime rate, we would have the lowest crime 
rate in the world, with the possible exception of Russia.
  While Professor Fellmeth zeroes in on the California situation, it is 
worthwhile for my House and Senate colleagues to read what he has to 
say because they will find a striking similiarity between the 
California action and the Federal action.
  I ask that his statement be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:
               [From the Los Angeles Times, July 5, 1995]

     California: A Society That Cuts Child Welfare but Boosts Jails

                        (By Robert C. Fellmeth)

       Despite what we often hear from the governor and the 
     Legislature, spending for the welfare of our children has 
     been in steady decline.
       An example: The governor claims to have given politically 
     popular K-12 public education ``high priority'' and ``saved 
     it from cuts'' for the last several years. But figures from 
     the second annual Children's Budget, completed by the 
     Children's Advocacy Institute, show a steady decline each 
     year, including proposed spending for 1995-96.
       At the federal level, Congress proposes to change child 
     spending from ``entitlements'' based on how many children 
     qualify for assistance to ``block grants,'' set at a static 
     figure for five years. The Republican leadership contends 
     that such a policy will curb what it calls ``runaway 
     spending.'' In contrast, the Children's Budget reveals that 
     such a freeze means substantial reductions year to year, 
     imposed without consideration of need or consequences.
       Budgets based on raw numbers, or numbers with only 
     inflation or only population changes considered--but not 
     adjusted by both--slowly but inexorably squeeze out 
     infrastructure investment. In California this failure has 
     allowed a largely undiscussed disinvestment in children to 
     accumulate over the past six years.
       From 1989-90 to the current year, Aid to Families With 
     Dependent Children has been cut 20%, the three child-related 
     Medi-Cal accounts an average of 23% and public education 7.5%
       The consequences in terms of flesh and blood are momentous: 
     The Children's Budget reveals that AFDC for 1.8 million 
     children in California has been cut from close to the federal 
     poverty line to only 75% of that wholly inadequate amount. 
     The governor now proposes to reduce AFDC to just 64% of the 
     poverty-line figure, posing a clear danger of malnutrition 
     and permanent health damage. Wilson also proposes further 
     cuts in AFDC assistance after six months of help; the 
     Republican House would cut children off altogether after two 
     years if Mom does not have a job.
       Ironically, the same gradual suffocation has been applied 
     to GAIN, the major program providing child care and job 
     training for AFDC mothers. Here there is a 9% decline from 
     1989 and a proposed further cut of 12%.
       The typical AFDC recipient--contrary to public perception--
     is 29, white, recently divorced, with two children and no 
     child support. Her problem is not a desire for welfare 
     dependency but the far more prevalent dilemma of paternal 
     abandonment. Is it relevant that childcare help and job 
     training, without which she does not have a chance, have been 
     cut? Less than 10% of AFDC parents get child-care help.

[[Page S10436]]

       The minimum wage is another example. If it had been 
     adjusted to match inflation over the past 20 years, it would 
     be just above $12,000, the federal poverty line for a family 
     of three. But if our typical divorced mother of two obtains 
     full-time employment at minimum wage (as many must do), she 
     will earn $8,840 before deductions--about what full-time 
     child care for her children will cost. Would we take such a 
     population and cut their wages every year by 3% to 5%? That 
     is what the current numbers accomplish.
       We are spending more in one area: jailing of criminals. 
     California now has the highest juvenile incarceration rate of 
     any state, in a nation with the highest juvenile 
     incarceration rate among all developed countries. 
     California's adult prison population has increased from 
     19,000 in 1977 to 132,000 this year, at an operating cost of 
     $20,000 per prisoner per year. The state is now preparing for 
     341,000 prisoners and 41 new prisons over the next eight 
     years. Is there a relationship between unlimited prison 
     spending and years of decreases in basic investment in 
     children's programs?
       To be sure, many of our problems can be traced to private 
     irresponsibility--a dependency mentality by some and, for 
     more, a frightening abandonment of children by biological 
     fathers. But public spending makes a difference.
       Children Now indexes show that a record 28.6% of California 
     children live in poverty and 20% have no access to private or 
     public health care. We also have high infant disability, 
     record low test scores and increasingly violent juvenile 
     crime.
       Each of these aspects has a relationship to public 
     spending. It is no accident that California's falling test 
     scores, for example, correlate with the worst student-teacher 
     ratio in the nation and a per-pupil spending level now 
     nearing the bottom five states, just ahead of Alabama and at 
     half the level of New Jersey.
       California is one of the richest jurisdictions in the 
     world--we can boast of having more vehicles than licensed 
     drivers--and our wealth increases each year. The governor 
     predicts that personal income will increase 6% in each of the 
     next two years.
       And our tax burden has decreased. In 1989-90, we spend 
     $6.88 from the general fund for every $100 in personal 
     income; in the current year, we are spending $5.86 per $100, 
     and the governor proposes a further reduction to $5.50. At 
     the same time, he is calling for a $7-billion tax cut for the 
     wealthy over the next three years.
       Could the governor make his cutback proposals if the right 
     numbers were used and understood? The fact is that for six 
     years we have been giving to the wealthy and taking from the 
     children. We just haven't been talking about it.
     

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