ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512270014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
WE USED to refer to them as people "less fortunate than ourselves." We think about them at Christmastime. We should know that, in the next few years, their ranks may grow and their already hard lives deteriorate.
Never mind who wins or loses among the politicians in the ridiculous budget battle. Let's focus on the population likeliest to lose under the plan that emerges: the poor.
The GOP leadership insists it wants to help, not hurt, the struggling and the destitute: help them find opportunity, help them escape dependency.
If that were the case, why isn't there more than inadequate support for child care and health insurance and training needed to help move welfare recipients into jobs?
Why has Congress proposed eliminating the entitlement to basic medical care for the poor? Medicaid covers more than one in five children, half of whom have working parents.
Why eliminate Head Start for 180,000 preschoolers, slash nutritional programs, or cut back the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides an incentive to work?
And why propose massive tax cuts, tilted toward the well-off, if the intent is to balance the budget and not to redistribute revenues from the weak to the prosperous?
There's a score to keep here more important than the poll ratings of presidents and congressmen.
LENGTH: Short : 35 linesby CNB