Congress set to make grim situation even worse
Posted 10/31/11
Asheville Citizen Times staff editorial from October 23
We’re fortunate in this area to have our own army.
Working in the background, almost invisible, are groups like Hearts With Hands, the Eblen Foundation MANNA Foodbank and countless less high-profile groups that help feed, clothe and provide shelter and heating resources for those in need. They’re never thanked enough; they’re needed even in the best of times.
After the economy stayed stagnant for most people during the last decade before completely collapsing in 2008, such groups are needed more than ever.
The statistics are numbing.
Nationwide unemployment continues to hover near double-digits; nearly half of the jobless are now classified as long-term unemployed. Gas prices are up, grocery prices are up, health care costs are up. The need for emergency food assistance has risen 46 percent since 2006.
Here in Western North Carolina 106,000 different people a year seek food assistance from MANNA FoodBank’s network of 231 emergency food providers. That’s one in six of us; of the total, nearly 10,000 are elderly and 33,000 are children.
Let’s pause here to shoot a few holes in the stereotype of the Cadillac Welfare Queen that’s back in vogue today. There’s a whole new clientele that needs assistance, folks who have lost their jobs, run through their savings, even lost their homes. Many people are now turning up at the food banks they once donated to.
Along the way, a combination of factors has made the job of those providing assistance more difficult. For starters, if people don’t have jobs, they obviously can’t donate to such groups. Those still working in jobs with stagnating wages have less to give.
And then there’s our dysfunctional government, which seems bent on ripping up an already tattered safety net.
Already on the table are proposals to cut between $4 billion and $5 billion to safety net programs. Thanks to Congress’ Rube Goldberg-esque plan to trim the deficit, the supercommittee, even more damaging cuts could well be in the offing. If the supercommittee doesn’t come up with a plan to balance the budget by year’s end, automatic triggers kick in to balance the budget with a mix of 50 percent defense spending cuts and 50 percent domestic discretionary spending cuts.
The results? People being kicked off government food aid, while resources to the food banks they would need to turn to are being cut.
In essence, after the economy sank, it left a lot of people clinging to the life rafts provided by the type of folks we mentioned starting out.
Our very own government seems bent on machine-gunning those survivors. As usual, Congress has laid its own relief plan. If the supercommittee triggers kick in, they won’t be enacted until 2013, conveniently after the 2012 elections.
We need to hear from Reps. Heath Shuler and Patrick McHenry and Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan on this issue.
A perfect storm is brewing. We can’t count on our hard-pressed local army to clean up the damage this time.
