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The Welfare Program^.*,___
^ _
Everyl:: ly’s Whipping Boy
• If the welfare client is female, we
draw a horror picture of repeated
illegitimate births for the sole pur
pose of increasing her welfare bene
fit. She’s loafer, too.
..What are the facts? People wind
up on welfare not because they are
cheats, loafers or malingerers, but
because they are poor. They are not
just poor in money, but in every
thing. They’ve had poor education,
poor health care, poor chances at
decent employment, and poor pros
pects for anything better.
..We are advised that welfare pro
vides such opulent living its clients
would be crazy to give it all up and
go to work. We hear repeatedly that
welfare clients are cheats and wel
fare programs are rampant with
fraud.
. .Here Are The Facts! Most of the
poor are not on welfare. Some 15
million Americans receive some
form of welfare benefits. There are
more than 25 million officially below
the poverty level of $4,000 a year for
a family of four. Another 30-to-50
million are just barely above it. And
$4,000 a year, as everyone knows,
does not afford extravagence.
..Of the 15 million receiving wel
fare, about eight million are child
ren under 16 years of age. Anyone
for “work-fare” for children more
than half a century after child labor
laws were enacted?
..Less than one percent — about
150,000 — welfare recipients are
able-bodied employable males?
Many of these are in their late
middle years. Most are uneducated.
All are required by law to sign «p for
work or work training. A govern
ment study shows more than 80
percent want to work, rather than
draw welfare, and among the
fathers in this group one in three is
enrolled in work training.
. .Welfare mothers are not churning
out illegitimate children. Nearly 70
percent of all children in welfare
families are legitimate, according to
the Social and Rehabilitation Ser
vice of HEW. Thirty percent of
welfare families with any children
have only one child. The remainder
have four or more.
..Economically, anyway, the myth
is nonsense, since the average pay
ment per additional child nationally
is only $35 a month, hardly an
incentive toward mass production.
.. More than 48 percent of welfare
families are white; about 43 percent
are black. Most of the remaining are
American Indians, Orientals and
other racial minorities.
Students Feeling Labor Market Pinch
.. Students in the cooperative occu
pational education programs are
feeling the pinch of the tight labor
market. A survey taken by the
Department of Public Instruction
during the week of January 13-re
vealed that state-wide approximate
ly 17 percent of the students were
unemployed. Students in the eastern
part of the State seem to be fairing
better than those in the west.
..Approximately 13 percent of co
operative students in the northeast
were unemployed while over 26 per
cent were unemployed in far
western North Carolina with the
piedmont reporting about 15 percent
unemployed. The on-the-job in
struction that students receive is
important in getting them ready for
Borrowing Money
.. THE LAW of supply and demand
is frequently cited as a factor in the
rise or drop in prices on the market
place, but nowhere is it more applic
able than in the money market.
.. When the supply of money for
loans is plentiful there is a tendency
for interest rates to decline. And
when the demand for money is high,
the price of it • as translated into
interest rates - goes up.
.. Thus the announcement by the
U.S. Treasury that it may have to
borrow $28 billion from the private
sector during the first half of this
year can only raise a question as to
how it will affect borrowing for the
private sector.
..We have in recent months wit
nessed the effect of escalating inter
the labor market. There are things
that the community can do to help
train our young people during these
times of high unemployment.
.. Business-industrial-service
leaders can volunteer to go into the
schools in the afternoons and teach
students. Members of the commun
ity can assist the teacher coordina
tor in developing instructional
materials and activities related to
specific occupations that can be
used with students in a classroom •
lab setting in lieu of on-the-job
experiences.
. .The local director of occupational
education would welcome assistance
in providing educational exper
iences for our young people who are
caught up in the economic slump.
est rates on private business. The
most obvious casualties have been
the construction and real estate
businesses. Homes must be financed
by mortgages and mortgages must
have a reasonable price tag if con
sumers are going to utilize them.
Interest rates in excess of 10 per cent
are unrealistic for those who would
assume a home mortgage.
.. In recent weeks interest rates
have shown a modest decline which
has given rise to hope for a resur
gent construction and real estate
market.
..But the effect of such heavy fed
eral borrowing as expressed in the
estimate of $28 billion can only
generate speculation on what It will
do to interest rates.
0UTY /$ CARRYING ON PROMPTLY
AND FAITHFULLY THE AFFAIR*
NOW PC FORE YOU-ITI* TO PUL'
FILL THE CLAIM* OF TO'PAY.*
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Community Control_By Whom?
REPORT FROM
J^^VVashington^^
The $20 Billion Tax Cut
..Question-Congressman Martin,
your Committee on Ways and Means
voted to pass a $20 billion tax cut
proposal. There have been a number
of arguments on the issue from both
conservatives and liberals. Two
questions, is a tax cut needed and
will it help the economy?
✓
..Congressman Martin- My initial
feeling was that because of the fact
that our recession is complicated by
the existence of, a very steep rate of
inflation, we could not afford to
move strongly in the direction of a
tax cut, but on the basis of testimony
before our committee I changed that
position. It was pointed out, in a very
convincing way, that as long as
there is so much slack in the
economy and so many layoffs along
with plant closings an immediate
tax cut of modest size could help to
stimulate a recovery from the re
cession. So during the committee
discussion, I supported the basic
measure of a quick one-shot tax cut,
a rebate based on last year’s taxes.
However, the entire package was
something quite different.
..Question- You say a tax cut is
needed, but during a meeting of the
House Ways and Means Committee
you voted against a $20 billion doUar
tax cut. Why?
..Congressman Martin- That’s
right. On the total package, I felt the
$20 billion was high. That is over 20
percent higher than what President
Ford has asked for, , but with the
exception of two other features that
were built into the proposal, I could
have gone along with the legislation.
One of these features I could not
accept as it came out of the Ways
and Means Committee was in addi
tion to the quick one-shot tax rebate
to stimulate a recovery from reces
sion it also has an addition $8 billion
that would be a more permanent tax
cut. It would change the tax rates a
more permanent way and it would
be very difficult to correct that in the
future. As we begin to come out of
the recession, as we begin to bottom
out in the economy and move back
into productivity, this more per
manent tax cut will still be there and
will be providing stimulus. I could
not support that concept, because it
would be inflationary in the future.
We are going to have enough in
flationary pressures without adding
to the pressure by this more per
manent tax cut. It will add to the
deficit and therefore will put upward
pressure on interest rates. This is
something we just can’t afford.
.. There’s one other feature I could
not buy. The concept was talked
about a great deal but was in effect
rejected in the 1968 elections. I am
talking about the negative income
tax. This bill which just cleared the
Ways and Means Committee has
some virtues, but it also incorpor
ates an idea of giving a tax rebate to
some people who don’t pay taxes. In
that way as in income redistribution
plan or a negative income tax pro
posal, it is not something I am ready
to go along with at this time. Now it
is at a small level, but it is like the
camel getting his nose under the
tent. Once he gets his nose under, the
rest of him is soon to follow. I don’t
believe we are ready for that.
TO
BE
EQUAL
VERSON E. JORDAN JR.
Black History Week-The Historians
.. Black History Week is an annual event, usually
celebrated in schools with special discussions on
black history and great black figures of the past
and present. By and large, it is a positive step
toward heightening the consciousness of black
and white children of the great contributions
made by black Americans to our common
history.
. .What makes this year’s Black History Week
somewhat different from the past is that the core
experience of black history itself has come up for
re-evaluation historians. And this new re
evaluation tells us a lot more about the current
climate of attitudes toward blacks than it does to
enlighten us about the past.
. .One of the most talked about studies of the past
year was a book purporting to change our view of
slavery by using computer-based studies. The
authors, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman,
come up with the rather startling conclusions
that the slave experience was not as bad as
previous historians had painted it.
..Their motives appear to be based on the
feeling that portraits of docile slaves and brutal
masters have to berevised in the light of their
supposed new findings. They claim that it is
wrong to blame the present plight of black people
on the slave experience, that it is more clearly
the discrimination of the post-slavery period
right on up to our, own day that best accounts for
black-white disparities.
..On that last point most can agree, but by
portraying blacks entrapped in slavery as rela
tively content, their masters as benign, and the
entire wretched system as relatively humane,
the authors just set up a new mythology as wrong
as the openly pro-slavery historians of the early
1900s were.
..If the system was all that good, why did so
i many blacks run away? If they were fed as well
as the authors claim, why are plantation records
so full of stories about slaves stealing food? Why
are there so many eyewitness accounts of
brutality and neglect? Most important today,
why was such a book written and why has it
found such wide acceptance?
. .Other historians have ripped apart many of the
authors’ assumptions. They've pointed out how
they’ve fed statistics from one or a few planta
tions in one part of the country at one particular
time, and come up with fancy mathematical
projections that led them to generalized — and •
wrong — statements about slavery.
• ■ I m willing to leave the technical discussions to
their peers, who have held numerous confer
ences and written many learned articles largely
disproving this new revision of history. My
primary concern is the rush with which the
media and the public adopted a revision of the
past that serves to soothe America’s guilt and to
rob contemporary blacks of one of their moral
claims against the nation.
..Scholarship always reflects the times. No
matter how far into the past it delves, it tells us
as much about the times in which it was written
as about the dim past. During the years of open
segregation and the institution of Jim Crow, the
dominant scholars were neo-Darwinists who saw
life as a battle in which only the fittest will
survive-and you know who that would be.
THE CHARLOTTE POST
“THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER”
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By A.M. Houston
Published Every Thursday
By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc.
9139 Trinity Road - Charlotte, N.C. 28216
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489-1220 Calumet 5-0200
First For Freedom?
By Gerald Johnson
..Have you seen your North Caro
lina License plates, the new ones,
that Is? Yes, we are "First For
Freedom.” Can you believe that
North Carolina is First For Free
dom?
..The state that has the largest
number of people on death row is
First For Freedom. The state that
has conspired against political act
ivist is First For Freedom. The state
that has its major city ranked fifth in
most segregated cities polled is
First For Freedom. The state that
allows proven corrupt people to
serve in state government is First
For Freedom. The state that is
number one in disallowing liquor by
the drink is. also, number one for
Freedom.
..Well, I don’t know who made up
the slogan, but I must say it was
truly a bad choice of words. What is
worse, we are stuck with the slogan
for five years. First For Freedom,
Last For Truth, is how the license
plate should read.
GROCERIES IN BLACK AREAS
..Have you ever been grocery
shopping in the southeast section of
Charlotte? Not that the food is any
cheaper on that end of town, but the
conditions of the food look much
better. The food looks so good you
want to eat it.
..The stores are so nice and clean,
and very well kept over in the
Southeast area. I was truly shocked.
..Compare the grocery stores in
that area with the ones in Soulville.
The same chain, mind you, but one
store is in Southeast, the other was
in West Charlotte. The store on the
west side was filthy. Trash on the
floors everywhere you look. The
meat looks as If it was the south
east’s store reject. It had begun to
turn grayish green around the
edges. The majority of fresh vege
* ✓
tables were on the floor. The ean
goods looked like the "Schlitz Malt
Liquor" bull had gotten to them. The
whole scenario was enough to make
you sick.
. .It seems to me that since the food
was the same price in both stores,
both stores should offer the same
environment. The meats in the
southeast area shouldn’t look any
more appetizing than the meat in the
westside area. But they do! It is the
job of the community to see to it that
the food you spend your hard earned
dollar on is of the same quality as
the food In stores in other areas.
. But what’s puzzling me though is
that the store in the southeast caters
to whites and the store in the west
side caters to blacks.You don’t
think this might be.Nah!!!
Shucks, we are First For Freedom!