Keep Day Care Funds, Lowry Told

At a time when many Americans are shouting for less government, Gov. Mike Lowry found refuge in Spokane Tuesday.

Instead of confronting tax-hostile Republicans, the liberal governor met with political soulmates who support his fight to protect child care and other threatened social programs.

At an afternoon meeting, about 40 members of the Spokane Family and Child Coalition pleaded with the governor to expand or at least preserve spending that mostly aids the poor.

Day-care providers told Lowry that without nutritional food subsidies, child care becomes too expensive for most parents. Welfare recipients told him their predicaments will get worse if proposed reforms are passed.

One tearful mother of disabled children told him she needs more help raising her kids. “I’d give anything for a good night’s sleep,” said Georgia Gore. “Please help us. We need your help.”

Lowry unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and nodded along, saying at one point, “I agree with everything that’s been said.”

State Rep. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, also at the meeting, said: “I’d like to get the people in this room in a room with the chamber of commerce to talk about competing needs.”

The comment brought laughter and applause.

Lowry panned congressional plans to turn social programs over to the state. He said Congress is disguising 30 percent program cuts by calling them block grants.

Part of the Republican “Contract with America,” block grants rely on states to make up for cuts with leaner staffing and oversight. Nobody yet knows exactly how the new legislation will alter programs.

Lowry said his budget office predicts it will cost about $200 million a year in new state money to keep housing, day care, nutrition and other family aid programs at existing levels.

He conceded he won’t be able to talk the Legislature into filling that gap, and noted that it will take at least three years for the state to adjust to its expanded role.

“We’re under the most fundamental shift in delineation of services since World War II,” Lowry said. He also called the upcoming state legislative session the most important in 50 years.

Earlier in the day, Lowry was mobbed by children from the YMCA day care when he appeared before the massive Radio Flyer red wagon in Riverfront Park to speak on children’s issues.

At this gathering, Shannon Selland, of the Eastern Washington Family Day Care Association, told a crowd of 40 kids and 40 adults that the U.S. Senate had gunned down a proposal to help parents pay for child care while they are trying to get off welfare. “We’re scared,” Selland said.

Lowry also slammed the Senate action.

“It’s amazing to me how they can cut this. You simply can not, at $6.30 an hour, make a $330-a-month child care payment.”

, DataTimes