Jericho for Justice

Jericho Newsletter

Spring 2007 Issue:

Competing Proposals Raise Expectations for Change
Governor’s Budget Targets Safety Net for Savings
Editorial
CalWORKS Cuts Put Children at Risk
Interfaith Lobby Day Highlights Faith-based Values at the Capitol

Competing Proposals Raise Expectations for Change

During January and most of February, more than 2,000 bills will likely be introduced before the February 23 deadline. Before the bills have their first Committee hearing, JERICHO staff will have briefly reviewed all of them and studied about sixty of the ones that relate most closely to improving the lives of people living in poverty. Our final “bill package” will include about thirty of the most relevant—about ten of which will receive the most focus.

Health is high on the agenda this year with the Governor and Legislature formulating a variety of plans. With the exception of Senator Sheila Kuehl’s single payer bill, which will be reintroduced this year, the other plans haven’t yet been introduced as legislation.

Thus far, Senator Perata and Speaker Nunez each have a plan and Republican Senators recently introduced one. Republican Assemblymembers have said that they have ideas for reform but will probably not introduce a separate plan.

A major difference this year from past health care legislation is the attempt to make reform more comprehensive rather than piece-meal. With health care premiums up as much as 75% over the past five years, the number of uninsured and underinsured increasing and employer-provided health care decreasing, it is really hard to make a case that the current way of doing business is working for most Californians.
One of the constraints on any of the reform models is the fact that they can’t involve any “new money” in the form of increased taxes if there is to be a bi-partisan solution. Each of the plans has political hurdles to jump as well as practical ones.

For those who have been working on health care reform over the many years, this year is both exciting and approached with some caution. California has unique challenges—among them: the number of uninsured, the number of low-income uninsured, and the number of undocumented residents. The greater challenge, however, is to bridge the philosophical differences between political parties as well as working out compromises with the various health care stakeholders.

JERICHO will continue our educational efforts through workshops around the state on health care reform. We will be collecting opinions from around the state and use that information as we speak with legislators and the Administration. As always, our concern will be the impact on low-income Californians and the over-all fairness of the proposals.

We also will be watching for new bills in the next couple of weeks to see how housing, income support, mental health, and immigration will be addressed in this session.

Governor’s Budget Targets Safety Net for Savings

When the Governor presents his budget each year, we look to see what the gains or losses are for low-income Californians. Among our various issues, the “big three” budget concerns for us are health, income support, and housing.

This year JERICHO has two over-riding concerns: 1) the fact that the Administration’s income projections may be overstated (which means that more of our interests may become at risk) and 2) the negative impact on poor families that will be affected by significant policy and budget changes in the CalWORKS program.

Tax proceeds as of January 15 are down. This is often a good indicator of what tax collection will look like in April. The Legislative Analyst questions some of the income assumptions and takes a more cautious approach to what income we are likely to receive. Because the health and human services parts of the budget are the most “flexible,” they are also at greater risk.

Although there is great interest in health care this year, you won’t find the Governor’s Health Proposal in the budget. The Plan is designed to add no new cost to the state. It redirects existing state money, relies on greater participation by the federal government and local governments, individuals, and businesses as well as assessments on doctors and hospitals.
For the past several years our attention in the budget has been focused on income support of families with children. This year’s budget makes a major change in the safety net for California’s children whose parents are enrolled in CalWORKS, California’s public assistance program for families. (See article.)

The Governor proposes to suspend the CalWORKs cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the third straight year and thirteenth time in the last nineteen years in order to save $140 million.

An improvement for CalWORKS participants would be changing recipients’ income reporting requirement from quarterly to every six months.

Editorial

Several years ago at my niece’s wedding, I was talking with some of her friends who had graduated with her from Stanford. At the time I was working in Olympia, Washington in a multi-faceted homeless program. One of the young men at the reception commented: “Isn’t it nice right now that any one who wants a job can have one?”

As I thought about the varieties of people I have worked with over the years, I didn’t know what to say. I knew people with such limited skills that it would take extended time and resources to make them “job ready.” Their early lives and education had prepared them for little.I thought of those struggling with mental illness—people who looked like anyone else but whose internal responses made full-time—or even more than a few hours of work—impossible. I thought of transportation barriers, sick kids, and fragmented child care. And, yes, I knew some people who may have just preferred not to work.

But mostly I thought in those seconds before I responded how little we know of one another across the income divide. What I said was: “Your experience is so different from mine that I don’t know what to say.”

To his credit this young man, soon to be on his way to a good job in St. Louis—Stanford diploma on the wall—responded: “You know, my wife and I were talking the other day and I said that the reason we view the world as we do is because everyone we know is just like us.”

I think about that conversation often as I try to make a case for that other part of the world that I have come to know. When I see the CalWORKS budget cuts for children, the amounts assumed that low-income people can pay for health care and the growing disparity in our state between rich and poor, I wonder how we can bridge the divide. I also know that middle class people have benefited from a variety of “supports” that we mostly take for granted.

At their graduation that same year, parents and students were reminded by their guest speaker, Mario Cuomo, of the public benefits that had helped their parents bring them to that place. The mortgage interest deduction alone over the years would have paid for their tuition. Yet few of us think of the interest deduction as the “public assistance” it is.

I guess it depends on one’s vantage point—or put another way, on one’s advantage point. It depends on from which side of the divide you are looking.

Sister Marti McCarthy, SSS

CalWORKS Cuts Put Children at Risk

In his 2007-08 Budget, Governor Schwarzenegger proposed major cuts and changes to the state’s CalWORKs program that serves poor families with children. In a fundamental policy shift, the Governor is proposing to undo the state’s safety net for children who currently continue to receive CalWORKS cash assistance even when their parents are no longer eligible.

The Current Situation
Families have up to five years of CalWORKS support while they ready themselves for work. Participants are required to work specified numbers of hours, and the federal government requires each state to meet a certain percentage of hours that their enrollees as a group are working.

During the five years, families can be “sanctioned” for failure to meet their work requirements. To be sanctioned means that the adult participant loses aid for themselves. Aid for their children, however, continues as a “safety net” that would at least help to maintain the family in their home.

The Proposed Change
The Governor’s budget would eliminate the cash aid for children if the adult was in sanction status for 90 or more days. About 75,000 children would be in imminent danger of losing aid.

In addition, where a parent has used up their 60-month clock, all aid would be terminated if the adult is not meeting work requirements. 108,000 children would be subject to immediate termination. County data shows only about 15% of adults work enough to avoid having kids cut off assistance.

Advocates believe that the severe implications of this policy and budget change needs further work to determine: Are those in sanction status actually able to work the number of hours required? Have recent assessments been done to determine what help needs to be provided? What are the implications for children if there is no ability to pay rent?
Work incentives can be positive where the expected outcome is realistically determined. A policy that puts a significant number of children at risk without testing the assumptions upon which that policy is based is very dangerous and should not be supported.

Interfaith Lobby Day Highlights Faith-based Values at the Capitol

On Behalf of Justice and Righteousness is the theme of this year’s Legislative Issues Day in Sacramento on Tuesday, March 27 from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Donation: $35.

Morning workshops include a choice of topics, including: Achieving Health Care Reform, Caring for Creation, Helping the Stranger Among Us, Revitalizing Our Economy, Our Failed Prison System, and An Earned Income Tax for California.
Former Assemblyman Martin Gallegos, currently lobbyist for the California Hospital Association, will prepare participants in “lobbying from a legislator’s perspective.”

There will be a dinner and discussion event on Monday evening, March 26 from 6-8 p.m. at St. John’s Lutheran Church. Featured speakers will be Assemblymember Loni Hancock and Jim DeHarpporte, of Catholic Relief Services. Donation: $25.

For more information or to register, call JERICHO at 916-441-0387.

Most people agree that we need affordable health care available for all Californians. There is less agreement on how we will accomplish that goal.

Learn about the current options for expanded healthcare that are being discussed in our state and around the country. Discuss with your neighbors the pros and cons and trade-offs of each option and decide what you think is workable or what is unacceptable.

Share your opinion with California’s legislators and the Governor as they consider proposed legislation.

JERICHO forums are an opportunity for people of faith to help shape California’s health care policy.

If your group would like to host a health care reform workshop or if you want JERICHO staff to speak at one of your events, please call the office at 916-441-0387 or e-mail at jericho@jerichoCA.org

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