‘Contract Out On Spokane,’ Local Activists Say Grim Report Depicts Effects Of Planned Cuts In Social Services
Spokane’s advocates for the poor rallied Monday to turn the public against federal plans to cut spending on social programs.
Last month, activists drove a steamroller to U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt’s office. On Monday, they released a report that depicts Spokane as the target of a mob hit.
“There’s a Contract Out on Spokane” is the title of the report, which shows a rifle sight fixed on the city.
“The situation has become so dire we’re more free to talk in these radical terms,” said Morton Alexander, coordinator of Spokane’s Fair Budget Action Campaign.
Final budgets have yet to emerge from Washington, D.C., but social services administrators predict these impacts in Spokane:
As many as 4,000 pregnant mothers and infants now receiving nutritional assistance will not get that help next year.
About 3,000 households that received energy assistance last winter will not get it this winter.
About 2,500 children who benefited from a summer lunch program will have to look elsewhere for food next summer.
Many day-care services will be forced to charge more after at least half of them lose their nutrition subsidies.
More than 400 summer jobs provided by the Job Training Partnership Act will disappear next year.
Nethercutt and other Republicans maintain people are panicking needlessly and dwelling on worst-case scenarios.
The Spokane Republican argues that new block grants to the states will be so much more efficient than the existing system that the cuts will not be felt at the local level.
Spokane activists don’t buy it.
Bob Peeler, director of the homeless program for the Spokane Neighborhood Action Program, said it likely will take a tragedy to make the community take action.
“It’s going to take a homeless family with kids to die this winter before it’s an issue.”
The “Contract Out on Spokane” report was compiled by the Peace and Justice Action League.
It says the average Spokane household paid $1,756 in federal income taxes this year. Broken down by Congress’ current spending priorities, $456.56 of that would go toward defense, $50.92 to education, $42.14 to housing, $26 to welfare and $5.27 to Head Start.
There still is time to act, said Linda Stone, Spokane coordinator of The Children’s Alliance, noting the House and the Senate still are wrangling over details.
While leaders hope President Clinton will veto congressional spending bills, they seem to have lost faith in even their most likely champion, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Alexander wrote Murray a terse letter after she sided with Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and other Republicans on welfare reform.
“Your vote for Sen. Dole’s welfare bill was the test which for years I feared you would flunk,” Alexander wrote.
, DataTimes