FEDERALIZATION OF WELFARE

Despite the President's much touted "economic recovery," many of our state and local governments continue to suffer a devastating economic decline as tax revenues shrink and unemployment shows no improvement. Funds available for education become more and more scarce. As an organization representing public education, we recognize how closely the future of education is linked to the future of the economy in general; while education budgets are being cut to the bone in school district after school district, teachers are being laid off and supportive services are being discontinued. In some large cities the very survival of public education is at stake.

Ironically, as unemployment goes up the burden of costs on localities intensifies in the form of welfare and related expenses. In fact, as their payments run out, the unemployed are turning increasingly to the welfare rolls for subsistence and giving up their search for nonexistent jobs. Vital social services such as education end up competing with other services for even smaller amounts of public funds. In such circumstances the schools end up on the receiving end of the most drastic budget cuts, and the long range solution to our economic problems is made even more difficult because individuals are increasingly unable to compete in our highly specialized, technological society.

States and localities which are forced to either raise taxes or cut costs by laying off employees are neutralizing the impact of federal tax cut policies designed to give the economy a boost. And, as the economic health of states and localities remains poor, subsidies for both the welfare poor and the unemployed become an impossible burden if other services are to be maintained at satisfactory levels.

The survival of quality education in many states and localities depends on new federal initiatives to deal with the realities of local and state budgetary problems. Financing public welfare has become a hardship as a result of national economic policies, jobs policies and court decisions. The result is a burden placed on some states because of the refusal of others to provide adequately for their residents. Increased federal support for state and local welfare costs, and an accompanying equalization of benefits among the states would end the inequities some states and localities suffer in welfare costs. It would also end the tendency for welfare recipients to concentrate in places where adequate welfare provisions act as a residency incentive thus heightening the ratio of dependent residents to taxpayers, and simultaneously weakening the base of local economies. This results in a financial punishment for those states which deal most equitably with their poor.

If the federal government assumed responsibility for welfare costs, considerable state and local funding would be freed up for use in the schools. As an organization that is committed to continued public support for quality education as well as a decent support level for the poor, we believe that the Federal Government simply must take over the payment of welfare costs and begin to equalize benefits.