Marc Cooper responds

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Marta Russell wrote:
>And most importantly, no one is entitled to service from a charity.  One
>has to be designated a "deserving" case.  Think of all the subjective,
>discriminatory decisions that can be made under such a system and think
>of all the power that charity welds over a family in need. It is a
>terrible substitute for economic justice and I believe that we need to
>reject those who would undo entitlements and impose their self serving
>tax shields on the people.

An excellent post! The only qualification I would add is that means-tested
govt. social programs have been also run as if they were private charities,
even before the 'welfare reform.'

As far as I know, never in the history of US welfare programs has everyone
who is legally entitled to assistance received it, and not simply because
of technical mistakes on the part of social workers. In fact, the gap
(between entitlement and actual delivery of assistance/service) grew bigger
in the era of working-class acquiescence, and it became narrower when
social movements were on their upsurge. I wish folks had publicized this
fact more when we still had a slim chance to save AFDC: welfare programs
have always been severely underused.

Yoshie