A.F.D.C. = Aid for Dependent Capitalists

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A "depression" has hit the U.S. economy. Although the major economists don't like the "d" word, whatever it may be called, it's bad. And in state after state, the capitalist politicians are playing Robin Hood in reverse-laking from the poor and giving to the corporate rich.

Gov. Wilson of California just announced his plan to place more of the tax burden on the poorest in his state to ease the pain of the pampered rich. Wilson is planning to cut AFDC funds (Aid for Families with Dependent Children).

At the present time in California, a single mother with two children receives $663 a month plus food stamps and Medi-Cal. Wilson fears that this magnificent stipend will act as a magnet for welfare recipients from other states and motivate them to move to California.

Actually, the welfare rolls have expanded because California has a 7.4 percent unemployment rate, which is 10 percent higher than the national rate of 6.8 percent.

By When unemployment insurance runs out, workers have no choice but to apply for welfare. (And when their checks run out, the government claims that they're "discouraged" workers who no longer seek jobs-and they're no longer counted as unemployed.)

Welfare caseloads in California increased 20 percent between 1988 and 1991. Across the nation there has been a 15 percent increase. Between 1980 and 1988, births to unwed mothers nearly doubled, from 83,000 to 152,000, or nearly 30 percent of all births in California. This, too, has added to the welfare caseloads.

But Wilson is determined to make the children pay for the recession, and it is the poor who are going to be forced to carry the burden of the chronic capitalist disease of mass unemployment. In the days of Charles Dickens little children were allowed to beg on the streets. When Wilson cuts AFDC he should, at least, supply each child with an official begging license.

Day after day we are bombarded with news stories about how lazy welfare recipients just refuse to work. How women will have baby after baby just to get welfare and not have to work. It makes as much sense as President Bush telling us to end the recession by running out and buying a car and a house-and maybe a pair of socks.

But, I have living proof that people want to work and will do anything for a job.

Our new headquarters, at 3425 Army Street, is just across the street from a parking lot where day-laborers gather. At dawn, every day, men begin to line up for work. In the rain, fog, and wind, they wait for any truck that might come by. Then they break and run for the truck, surrounding it, asking to be hired.

They are willing to take the most gut-busting, back-breaking work for the lowest salary possible. They stand in the parking lot until the sun goes down, and then return the next day for a new try.

If I had the power I would force every loudmouth who talks about lazy welfare people to stand outside that store and beg for work.

The real truth is that many people who are on welfare do work. But their wages are so low they need welfare in order to survive.

From 1977 to 1989, the poorest fifth of American families saw their incomes drop by more than 10 percent, to $8391 annually, while the incomes of the richest fifth grew by more than 25 percent to, $109,424 annually. In the 1980s, 80 percent of all jobs created paid less than $8000 per Taxes on the poor and working class have skyrocketed while taxes on the rich have dropped steadily for the past 20 years. Now the politicians and the capitalist class are demanding even more tax cuts for the corporations, saying this is the way to end the recession.

In a way, they're right. Capitalists are not investing because profits are too low. To raise profits, among other things, it's necessary to mercilessly tax the working-class poor and cut social services such as education, health, and welfare.

And then, the Democratic and Republican Party state and federal governments simply hand over billions of our taxes to bail out bankrupt banks and corporations.

That's the new AFDC swindle (Aid For Dependent Capitalists) that California's Gov. Wilson and all the other political puppets of the ruling class are pulling off.

I want to wish all of our readers a great, militant, fighting new year! are doomed to suffer a qualitative disadvantage in the class struggle.

Socialist-minded workers must now focus their attention and efforts on the opening provided by the victory of the vanguard led by Ron Carey in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In the coming period, the course of the whole labor movement, and history itself, can be decisively affected by union-building intervention in this process by the most class-conscious members of the American working class.

The road to building a mass, revolutionary socialist, working-class party will be paved by economic struggles such as this one opening up in the IBT. It will be led, we can be sure, by the new generation of working-class fighters that will inevitably emerge from these struggles.

Readers and supporters of Socialist Action can be counted on to play their part in the coming struggles by IBT and other union militants. -the editors

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