
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 22, 1995                   TAG: 9509220059
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAX CREDIT

WHATEVER the final shape of the legislation, as determined by a House-Senate conference committee, this can be said for national welfare reform expected to come out of the current Congress:

American taxpayers, by large majorities, support a major overhaul of the system. Its failings to rescue families from poverty are too obvious to ignore. It makes good sense to try to design a more effective system.

OK, but what about other legislation, which could help push many low-income working families back into the depths of poverty, thereby creating a greater need for welfare programs of which there will be fewer available? Does anyone think this would make good sense?

Apparently Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee do.

By a 21-15 party-line vote, the committee has just approved a measure that would reduce the earned-income tax credit for 9 million working-poor families with children, and end it altogether for 4.4 million childless workers.

The bill would penalize workers who are struggling to survive in meager-pay jobs with no benefits such as health care - workers often holding down two or three such jobs to prevent their families from sinking into the rut of welfare as we know it, where they actually might be financially better off.

Never mind that the earned-income tax credit, implemented in 1975 and expanded by President Clinton, has made work a slightly more attractive alternative to staying on welfare. Republicans, who simultaneously are trying to increase tax breaks for the wealthy, say the proposed changes in the earned-income credit will target the refund to families who need it most - those earning less than $11,620. As if families with two or three kids and earning $11,625 are living in fat city.

Republicans say, too, that the tax-credit program has been plagued by fraudulent claims. If that's the case, why not crack down on the fraud rather than the working poor?

Consider: This measure amounts to, in effect, a tax increase on low-income workers and families at a time when the nation is straining to get people off welfare and into low-income work.

Rep. Sam Gibbons, Democrat of Florida, called it ``the most heartless thing we've ever done.'' That's an exaggeration, but Gibbons may have been straining to avoid calling it stupid.

by CNB