President’s Welfare Reform Plan

In response to “Clinton Unveils Welfare Reform,” June 15:

Members of Congress trip over themselves to enact punitive welfare reform every year, saving pennies at the expense of women and children, yet they cannot pass a revised mining law or repeal tobacco subsidies, losing billions of dollars every year.

Funny how Republicans seem to lose their will to reduce spending when it hurts their buddies or their own pocketbooks!

SUSAN PERLSON

Brea

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* As the debate about welfare reform drones on, is it surprising that not a single word is being said that links welfare to its bigger cousin, public housing? In 1992, federal expenditures for the Housing and Urban Development program amounted to $24.4 billion compared to $22.8 billion for the food stamp program. It is clear that more money is being spent on housing subsidies than on food stamps. The costs for AFDC are being trumpeted to the public every day. What is not being mentioned is the cost of housing subsidies. This shortsightedness will doom any attempts at welfare reform.

Recently, President Clinton proposed doubling the budget for the homeless to $1.7 billion, citing homelessness as a national problem. A draft of the report, “Priority: Home! The Federal Plan to End Homelessness,” says that were HUD to be spending what it should, its budget would rise no less than $15 billion a year.

Now, we are being told that part of the way the Administration plans on raising the $9.3 billion necessary for job training and subsidized job programs is by cutting the budget for the homeless.

DONALD S. CLARK

Long Beach

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* Reading the mean-spiritedness of “liberal” Bill Clinton’s health care plan and welfare reform plan (June 15), I am reminded of a passage in “The Fever” by Wallace Shawn:

“Voting for sincere politicians who believe fervently in gradual change does not change the life of the poor, because sincere politicians who believe fervently in gradual change do not change the life of the poor.”

FREDRICA SACKETT

San Diego

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* The vast majority of people on welfare want to get off it. Jobs are what they need most. Not minimum-wage jobs but jobs that pay a living wage. Money has been appropriated for job training. How many times in the past have we had job training and at the end of the training found that no jobs are available? There is no reason to believe this will change. Single mothers do not plan to have children. Education and counseling can help them to avoid the pitfalls of having unplanned children. And if there are children, it is wrong to punish them for the questionable actions of the mothers. Yet we do this all the time.

DON RADEMACHER

Los Angeles