Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 2, 1993 TAG: 9303020083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
IN VA., POVERTY DOESN'T SPARK WAR
FIGHTING POVERTY was high on Don Beyer's agenda, but he found out that legislators had other priorities this year.
Lt. Gov. Don Beyer's war on poverty turned out to be a scattershot skirmish at the 1993 General Assembly.
Lawmakers, whether hamstrung by forecasts of slow revenue growth or wary of endorsing new anti-poverty initiatives, refused to back programs - such as the earned income tax credit - that carried multimillion-dollar price tags.
Instead, the most visible success of the lieutenant governor's Commission on Stimulating Personal Initiative to Overcome Poverty was a $4.3 million pilot program aimed at training 550 welfare recipients for specific private jobs.
But even that program, largely funded through already existing welfare accounts, was shanghaied in the opening hours of the legislature by Gov. Douglas Wilder, who adopted it as the centerpiece of his welfare-reform package.
For his part, the lieutenant governor claims he doesn't care who gets the credit. And he sees the remaining small successes, including additional funds to battle teen pregnancy, as down payments on future work of the commission.
But some poverty commission members and advocates for the poor say they are frustrated by the pace of reforms.
"We have really forgotten one very important group of people," said Sue Capers, coordinator of the Virginia Coalition for the Homeless. "State workers and teachers and many other people certainly deserve the raises, but the forgotten people are the people with the very lowest wages."
People who perform minimum-wage tasks have gotten only two raises in 13 years, she said, making it more lucrative for them to stay on welfare than take dead-end jobs.
The state earned income tax credit would have increased a family's spending power by about $250 annually. The working poor already can take advantage of a federal earned income tax credit, and President Clinton has promised an expansion of the federal government's program.
"There is much talk about jobs and getting people to work, but there is much less talk about the wages of those jobs," Capers said. "It was a way to really put some action to these words. It was a way to make work pay."
Capers and others who have fought for three years to gain passage of the earned income tax credit are especially mystified by the actions of House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton.
Cranwell, vice chairman of the poverty commission, introduced the legislation but later scuttled his own measure and a companion bill introduced in the upper chamber by Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax County.
Cranwell justified his decision because of the state's money woes, saying he did not want to saddle the governor in the next two-year budget cycle.
"The theory is: If you have a job and you're working 40 hours a week you ought to be able to get by in Virginia," said Cranwell. "But the earned income tax credit has its limitations. I don't see that as important as the welfare reform."
Initially, Cranwell considered postponing funding of the credit by requiring that the legislature vote on the plan in 1994. But to Gartlan's dismay, Cranwell withdrew even that element of the plan by the end of the session.
"I would have liked to have seen it on the table for the budget planners," Gartlan said. "The lack of resources makes it easier to avoid these policy differences."
Although many professed to support the concept of raising the income of the working poor through a tax credit, there was little political incentive to make the $55 million program a priority.
"We would have had to make some provision for revenue if we let that kind of program go through," said Del. Pete Giesen, R-Augusta.
Instead, he and other members of the House Appropriations Committee whittled down dozens of requests to five priorities - raises for state employees, raises for public schoolteachers, increased funding for the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service and libraries and return of the recordation taxes to localities.
"As a member of the poverty commission, I was disappointed that this did not receive more serious and positive consideration," said the Rev. James Payne, a retired Presbyterian minister.
While Payne supports the welfare-reform package, he is worried that it will make only a small dent in the lives of the 74,000 Virginia families who subsist on welfare.
"The concept is good," Payne said. "The funding and the economic climate make it an uphill battle with a good idea."
The welfare-reform pilot program endorsed by the legislature would require federal approval because it involves "cashing out" state and federal welfare benefits into a trust fund that could be drawn on for living expenses while a welfare recipient undergoes job training.
"I am not expecting an easy review," said Secretary of Health and Human Resources Howard Cullum. "But we believe the way to change the system and to move people is to forget the current organization of making the people fit into the boxes. Make the boxes fit the people.'
The proposal would be aimed at placing welfare recipients in jobs that pay more than minimum wage and that provide health care. Otherwise, Cullum said, it makes no sense for welfare recipients to give up approximately $7,500 in annual benefits.
Cullum believes the $15,000 investment per individual over two years would pay off when the client no longer needs the help of social services.
But he also acknowledges it will take help from the private sector, because businesses will be involved in selecting people for specific jobs within their organizations.
"We are counting on the commitment of the [Clinton] administration, which is saying we want the states to be the laboratories [for welfare reform]," he said.
Despite Beyer's limited success this session in achieving everything on his poverty agenda, University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato believes his advocacy of the issue will raise the lieutenant governor's profile across the state.
Beyer, who is seeking a second term as lieutenant governor, also is considering running for governor in 1997.
"It's a good image issue and a substance issue if it ever happens," Sabato said. "Proposing anti-poverty programs along with workfare is going to be a fundamental part of the national system.
"It's a perfect combination for his constituency, which consists of business plus the traditional Democratic groups," Sabato said.