THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9503310020
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
Regarding ``How American society abuses children'' (Another View, March 25): It is sad to see that the liberal view is so devoid of ideas that it is forced to use anecdotal evidence to attack the Republican effort to reform welfare.
In the essay, Laura Buckius and Betty Wade Coyle draw a parallel between the death of Angel Valentine and the block-grant welfare reform. They contend that ``Our society is guilty of child abuse and neglect every day.'' They argue that such drastic change ``will throw every child born into poverty in America into the trash heap of our society.'' Again, they use the Angel Valentine parallel to make their point.
Our society is guilty of child abuse, and this abuse is the welfare system: the welfare system that traps and addicts the poverty-stricken in this country into a life of dependence; a system that encourages children to have children; a system that is stealing the wages of future taxpayers; a system that is in dire need of just the kind of drastic change that Buckius and Coyle argue against.
This welfare system was put together by well-meaning people who thought they were helping the poor. The great experiment has failed at the expense of the very people they were trying to help.
The effort to decentralize and restructure the welfare system has hit at the very core of the liberals' power base. The people who benefit from a huge centralized welfare system are not the children but the bureaucrats who run it and the politicians who derive power from it.
Do not be fooled. For every dollar spent on welfare, less than 30 cents is paid to the poor. Where does the other 70 cents go? It goes to pay for the huge centralized federal welfare system.
We need a serious dialogue in this country about how to solve the welfare mess. Accusing the U.S. Congress of ``child abuse'' is nothing more than an attempt at emotional blackmail.
P. G. STARR
Virginia Beach, March 26, 1995 by CNB