Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 29, 1994 TAG: 9412300076
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MYRIAM MARQUEZ
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Findings from decades of research on childhood development point to this undeniable fact above.
Here's another truth: Children don't get to choose their parents.
Children, though, are being singled out to suffer most by those in Congress who want to do away with anti-poverty food programs that have worked well for decades.
There's a push to do away with the federally subsidized breakfast and luncheon programs for poor children at public schools and with the food-stamps program. The thinking is that the federal government can simply hand over the money to states in the form of block grants, and each state then would set up its own nutrition program.
The problem with the theory is that it would set in stone each year an amount of money for each state to feed poor families. This formula would be based on census data and projections that would be, at best, a couple of years old. Economic downturns could not be addressed.
Anti-hunger programs are best left at the federal level, covered according to need and sudden economic circumstances that force people to seek short-term help. If there are people abusing such programs, those problems must be dealt with by tightening and enforcing rules across the board - not by creating a patchwork of state programs.
In this contest to reform the welfare system, both parties seem to be searching for quick fixes that can be foisted upon the states. Well, there are no quick fixes. And nutrition programs are not the culprits causing annual federal budget deficits or welfare dependency.
Nutrition programs are an affordable, long-term approach that can help children grow into productive adults.
Consider that Americans spent $30.1 billion on jewelry and watches in 1991. That's more than we did on federal food and nutrition programs for the poor, which cost $28.5 billion that year.
Robert Greenstein, a founder for the Center for Budget Priorities, administered federal nutrition programs during the 1970s. He says turning food programs into block grants would cause more problems than it could solve.
``The food-stamps program is one of the programs that functions as an automatic stabilizer for the national economy. It moderates economic downturns by stabilizing recently unemployed families with the ability to buy food,'' Greenstein said. ``With a block grant for food stamps, it could make a recession somewhat deeper and more protracted,'' because the block-grant amount would be set in advance and wouldn't take into account economic emergencies.
Greenstein has joined Robert Fersh of the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center and Larry Brown of the Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy to make a case for the needs of America's poor children.
In a phone conference, the three men noted that nutrition programs are not a welfare issue. Said Tufts' Brown, ``It's an economic-competitiveness issue that benefits the United States.''
``Essentially, the wealthiest nation on Earth is contemplating the most massive disengagement in our children's future in our history,'' Brown said. ``We know that even mild hunger robs children of their cognitive development, later of their productivity in the work force and, long term, of the United States' competitiveness in a global economy.''
And we know that children don't get to choose their parents. But maybe they should get to vote. Perhaps then, politicians wouldn't so quickly toss hungry children into the faceless, heartless pile of welfare-reform rhetoric.
Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel.
Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service
by CNB