Serious About Public Safety? Don't Cut the Social Safety Net
Our country stands on the precipice of dangerous cuts to the social safety net. SNAP benefits will be cut off on Saturday, pulling food assistance from 40 million people in this country – the majority of which are children. Affordable Care Act healthcare plan premiums are set to increase by over 30% this coming year. In Pennsylvania, where not only is there no federal budget but also no state budget, LIHEAP – the heating assistance program for poor and working-class families – has been cut. Childcare subsidies have been halted. For people living paycheck to paycheck, or without consistent, these cuts force impossible choices.
Simultaneously, policymakers are turning their attention away from meeting the needs of children and families, to “tough on crime” approaches. Media rhetoric harkens back to the overwrought “super predator” myth of the 1990s. Despite declining rates of violent crime in city after city, legislators are moving to roll back juvenile justice reforms, lock more children up, charge them as adults, and punish them harshly. This drumbeat is about scoring political points and sensationalizing news coverage rather than truly committing to public safety.
If lawmakers were serious about reducing crime, they would be serious about reducing poverty. Studies prove that deep poverty drives the crime rate. In addition to austerity measures cutting the social safety net, the cost of groceries, rent, and other necessities continue to rise.
The children and families we fight for are on the frontlines of these economic assaults, making our work and our vision for a brighter future even more difficult to achieve. We are compelled to speak up as children and families who are being denied essential benefits are pushed deeper into punitive and harmful systems.
In Baltimore, historic investments by Mayor Brandon Scott in s rec centers, violence prevention programming, and youth jobs have led to the lowest homicide rate in 50 years. We know what works. We just need to build the political and societal will to commit to it – and right now, we are moving at warp speed in the wrong direction.
Let’s imagine and fight for a future where all children have a fair chance to grow up. You cannot have this without access to nutrition, healthcare, fully funded education, and an equitable social safety net as a baseline. We will do our part to fight for law and policy that takes childhood into consideration; we sincerely hope that those passing our state and federal budgets do the same.
