Catholics at state level gird for more cuts

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 12, 1996 by Arthur Jones

WASHINGTON - For poor people, the news from state capitals is grim and will become grimmer. That assessment is based on a half-dozen NCR interviews with state Catholic conference officials nationwide as the federal government, pushed by the most conservative elements in a reformist Congress, seeks to cut social services and health programs and return spending to state capitals.

Moreover, the shift of responsibility to the states means that even public discussion of social services will be much reduced. Most state legislatures are part time - some meet in "long sessions' only every second year.

And as more programs shift to the states, it will be essential for state Catholic conferences to network constantly with one another, learning from successes, failures and dilemmas.

For example, this month a New Jersey commission will report on the desirability of instituting a school voucher program that will include religious schools. While that is good news for many Catholics, there's troubling news on the same topic from Wisconsin.

State Catholic conference deputy director Sharon Schmeling in Madison reports that in Wisconsin, where optional school choice also is on the front burner, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is considering mandatory regulation of all schools receiving public moneys. The possibility that an increase in state control of private schools will accompany the use of public money to support such schools is rarely discussed by those promoting school voucher proposals.

Certainly it is at the state level, with some variation from one state to the next, that the "punitive" element of social spending cuts facing individuals will be most clearly seen.

Said Schmeling, "Punitive reforms are there to make people pay in social discomfort for the fact that they are poor or low-income."

In Colorado, the "situation is similar to that in many states where the theory of those in power is that if you're poor, you're poor by choice," said Doug Delaney at Colorado's state Catholic conference in Denver. "So, `Pick yourself up by the bootstraps,' they say."

Delaney said last year in Colorado, which he described as an "experimental state," those opposing cuts were able to defeat a cap on welfare, as well as legislation that would have approved sterilizing prisoners in exchange for early release. The proposal on sterilization was based on the theory that prisoners' children end up in prisons.

Current fights and anxieties, said Delaney, include attempts to revise the children's code to permit trying children as adults for certain offenses and the fact that the Hemlock Society, which advocates euthanasia, has relocated to Denver from Oregon.

In Kentucky, said conference official Jane Chiles in Frankfort, "all of a sudden this kind of attack on the social safety net and the poor is very socially acceptable. Cutting programs is mainstream conversation in polite company where this sort of thing would not have been considered before."

A poor state, Kentucky is in the top handful receiving more federal dollars in aid than it sends to Washington in taxes. "For us to talk about getting the federal government out of our backyard is looking at losing significant dollars." Top fights ahead in Kentucky: how Medicaid will be dealt with; welfare reform with fewer dollars; the effect of state tax cuts; and "an extremely tough fight in preserving the omnibus health care reform bill we supported in 1994,' Chiles said.

Kentucky's bishops meanwhile, she said, "are very disheartened by the kind of quick solutions people are seeking and have issued a statement asking everyone to tone down the rhetoric."

Even before the formula for each state's share of federal block grants is fully decided or factored in, some states - such as Kentucky - know they will lose considerable income.

In Austin, Texas, however, Holy Cross Br. Richard Daly, head of the Catholic conference, said, "Ironically, my evaluation is that Texas is such a low-benefits state that probably whatever the feds do won't affect us as dramatically as New York or Massachusetts or California or Wisconsin and the other high-benefit states,

"Our poor people are going to be a little poorer," continued Daly, "but they're probably not going to experience the dramatic changes that will affect poor people in other states."

Texas, he said, is looking at "severe cuts in benefits for disabled children, elderly programs and welfare - though we have very low Aid to Families with Dependent Children) payments to start with."

In Nebraska, the real crunch will come two years from now, said James Cunningham in Lincoln. Nebraska has adopted the family cap, Learn-Fare and other aspects aimed at saving money as opposed to really helping people overcome their poverty. And this state will not fare very well from block grants."

He said the Catholic conference in testimony and meetings has regularly raised the question of whether there are jobs available to welfare recipients that provide a wage that would allow self-sufficiency.