A Six-Pack Toast to the Kinder and Gentler Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson just couldn’t resist the temptation.

Even in the midst of announcing some programs that should be helpful to poor women and children faced with being born into poverty, he couldn’t pass up taking a swipe at welfare mothers.

I hope he’s sleeping better this weekend, knowing that he knocked those welfare moms down a peg or two. They had been getting a little full of themselves lately, given the cushy berth they have in the world.

As Ronald Reagan showed long ago, you can’t go broke in California putting it to the welfare state. And when you’re a new governor already catching it from the right, hey, why not.

The guts of the news is that Gov. Wilson has some tough budget decisions to make. And while pointing out at a press conference that he wants to spend more for food stamps and other family-service programs, Wilson was asked about his proposal to cut monthly payments in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program--the symbolic cornerstone of welfare.

Wilson is proposing a $225-million cut. For a mother with two children, that would mean a monthly cut from $694 to $633, the governor said.

In defending his proposal, Wilson said those women still would have money to pay the rent, but would have to give up some discretionary spending. If he had stopped there, his proposal at least could have been debated on a loftier plane. But here’s how he said it: “I am convinced they will be able to pay the rent, but they will have less for a six-pack of beer. I don’t begrudge them a six-pack, but it is not an urgent necessity.”

The governor went on to say that “I’m not convinced that people who are not capable of earning (a living) are best left with discretion to spend.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the kinder and gentler Pete Wilson.

Let’s all stipulate that a six-pack of beer is, indeed, not an urgent necessity. Nor is a formal inauguration or a limousine.

And let’s not be so naive as to argue that women on welfare spend every last dollar on improving the lot of themselves and their children. Yes, people abuse welfare money.

Some people.

For many of them, however, it’s a daily struggle trying to figure out how to raise the kids by themselves in housing that’s acceptable. And if they are scouting around for a job, they have to figure out what job they can get that will pay enough to cover day care for the children.

The current AFDC payment provides less than $8,400 a year in income. No matter how you slice it, that’s not a whole lot of money to blow on anything in Orange County once you’ve found a place to live. When Pete Wilson cavalierly talks about cutting down a six-pack a month, he insults every woman who’s in the poverty-welfare cycle.

Despite its bad rap, welfare is probably the most humane and conscientious thing this society does. It defeats the purpose to extend the right hand to help and use the left hand to swat. To suggest, as the governor did with his lousy choice of words, that welfare moms are blowing their wads right and left on beer was a cruel and cheap shot. It’s a rotten way to sell a budget cut.

The idea, presumably, behind welfare is to provide the families (and let’s face it, we’re talking about children here) with a decent life in the hopes Mom can turn things around.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a young woman about to get off welfare. She conceded that she had spent some of her welfare money on drugs and that she knew other women who had too. After I duly noted that in the column, I got a plaintive phone call from another young mother of two, pained because of what she thought was the inference that all welfare mothers used drugs.

I told her I hadn’t said that, nor did I think most people would take the column that way. But reading the governor’s remarks only serves to remind me that the image of welfare frauds will probably never go away.

So, let’s shout it from the rooftops: There are welfare frauds, and they can’t manage their money!

But if we do that, let’s also add the following:

* Doctors defraud the Medi-Cal program.

* Insurers rip off consumers.

* Managers of savings and loans and banks, often run by people with the finest educations and highest social standing, have defrauded thousands of people.

* A story in the newspaper last week said the Pentagon left a legacy of misspent funds during the 1980s on weapons systems that didn’t pan out.

You’d almost be left to conclude that welfare moms aren’t the only societal group that wastes public funds or can’t manage its money.

Any day now, I’m sure, we can expect the governor to take these other groups to task with the same disdain that he bestowed on welfare mothers.