Lawmakers in a budget subcommittee vigorously rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to eliminate the CalWorks program yesterday, sending staff back on a party-line vote to reconsider the cut.
The cut could save the state $1.2 billion, but it would also turn away $3.7 billion in federal dollars, according to the agenda for the Assembly budget subcommittee hearing.
Photo by Clif Griffin
The program serves 1.4 million Californians – nearly 80 percent of them children – providing cash and employment services to parents who are encouraged to find full-time jobs.
Some observers may consider it ironic that the first governor calling for elimination of the program belongs to the same political party as the former governor who created it.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson created a national sensation when he replaced monthly welfare checks with a system encouraging parents - mostly single mothers - to go to work.
The program revolutionized welfare nationwide by the time Bill Clinton latched onto the idea and claimed to "end welfare as we know it." (I'm cribbing this from a book I recently read, American Dream, by New York Times reporter Jason DeParle.)
Nationwide, the program is credited with cutting welfare rolls in half or more. In California, about 400,000 parents – mostly single mothers – eased off of welfare benefits since 1997, according to the California Welfare Directors Association.
Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland, was outraged at the proposed elimination of the program.
“In the middle of the worst recession since the great depression, we’re proposing to cut a program when 22 percent of Californians are living in poverty?” he said. “I am trying to understand what this is really about.”
Assemblyman Wes Chesbro, D-Eureka, also pondered the motivation behind the cuts, concluding that it was based on “a public stereotype” about who the recipients of the program are.
“There is no question about whether or not we can entertain the idea of elimination,” Chesbro said.
One woman who spoke against the program cut during the hearing choked up with emotion when she credited the program in helping her mother become a registered nurse and support her own education.
The Legislative Analyst's Office reiterated its opposition to the cuts, saying the cut would force the state to forgo federal funding, shift costs to local government and eliminate a historic and basic program.
And it would eliminate a stream of funding to low-income families that are likely to spend the money rather than save it, according to the testimony of Ken Jacobs, chief of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. The cuts would also eliminate thousands of government jobs and negate the tax benefits of the beneficiary spending, he said.
All told, elimination of the CalWorks program could ripple through the state’s economy and cost 57,000 private-sector jobs, Jacobs said.
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