Tommy Thompson:
anti-poor guv slashed social programs
By Phil
Wilayto
While John Ashcroft may be the most outrageously
right-wing of George W. Bush's Cabinet nominations, his
choice for secretary of Health and Human Services may well
have a larger impact on the lives of poor and working people,
especially in the areas of welfare, reproductive rights and
health care in general.
"More than any other state, Thompson's Wisconsin
fundamentally changed the way government aids its poorest
citizens -writing and strictly enforcing rules that make it
tough to qualify for and keep welfare...," according to a
Dec. 20 Associated Press article. "If confirmed, he would
lead one of the biggest government bureaucracies, a
department that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the Food and
Drug Administration and other agencies that see to the needs
of the old, the sick and the poor."
Thompson and welfare
Tommy G. Thompson, 59, was the first governor elected on a
viciously anti-welfare platform in 1986. Since then, the
state's welfare rolls have been slashed 92 percent, the
sharpest reduction in the country.
President Bill Clinton was impressed. "Wisconsin has the
makings of one of the boldest [welfare reform plans] yet
attempted in America," Clinton said in a National Radio
Address in May of 1996, "and I'm encouraged by what I've seen
so far."
That was the year Clinton signed the national welfare
reform act that effectively eliminated the 61-year-old
entitlement program of welfare. Even Ronald Reagan hadn't
dared to go that far.
Thompson's main program, Wisconsin Works, or W-2,
basically eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children,
replacing it with a draconian system that forces virtually
all recipients to work, regardless of their circumstances.
Thousands of mothers on AFDC, many of them with severe
obstacles to working, never transferred over to the new
system.
For those able to find jobs--many of them at temp
agencies--the average wage is just over $7.00 an hour. For
those unable to "succeed" under the new rules, there is no
more safety net.
The results have been devastating. Homelessness has
skyrocketed, as has the number of children taken into the
state's foster care system. In the first year of W-2, the
Black infant mortality rate in Milwaukee shot up an
incredible 37 percent.
Far from being a program to reduce poverty, W-2 creates a
low-wage, captive work force that means super-profits for
private businesses. It opens wider the door to massive
privatization of government services and it helps to
obliterate the concept that the government has any inherent
obligation to "promote the general welfare." And those
achievements--not the elimination of poverty--were the real
goals of W-2.
School vouchers
Under Thompson's leadership, Wisconsin has also taken the
lead in the area of school vouchers, in which public funding
is used to pay the tuition of students attending private and
religious schools. Critics charge this is a thinly disguised
effort to privatize public education, along with its
$350-billion annual budget.
Milwaukee has the country's oldest and largest voucher
program. It's also the only one to resist court challenges to
including religious schools in the program.
Bush has pledged to try and introduce vouchers on a
national level. His choice for secretary of education is
pro-voucher Rod Paige, the superintendent of schools in
Houston.
The Bradley Foundation
Thompson's national rise is due primarily to his close
relationship to prominent right-wing foundations and think
tanks. Of the 15 or so largest right-wing foundations in the
U.S., the richest and most politically influential is the
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee.
Bradley plays a leading role in funding the myriad of
right-wing think tanks, publications and organizations that
prepare public opinion for programs like welfare "reform" and
school vouchers. Bradley money also paid for the state task
force that developed W-2 and underwrote the Milwaukee
"community" movement for school vouchers.
As governor, Thompson has allowed Bradley to develop pilot
projects in areas like welfare, vouchers, "faith-based"
initiatives and more that are then promoted nationally. The
result has been to turn Wisconsin, which had been known for
progressive innovations in government policy, into a kind of
laboratory for right-wing social experiments.
As head of HHS, Thompson could work to implement these
programs as federal policy.
Abortion rights
As HHS secretary, Thompson would also be in charge of the
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S.
Surgeon General, both of whom have the power to either
protect or restrict reproductive rights. He would oversee the
administration of the Title X family planning program, which
has provided millions of women with a wide range of
reproductive health services, including pap smears and breast
cancer screening.
Thompson has said that abortions should be legal only in
cases where a woman's life is endangered, or after a
pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. As governor, he has
used his power to increasingly restrict a woman's right to
choose.
Big tobacco
HHS is also the federal agency responsible for tobacco
control, prevention and treatment. The world's largest
producer of tobacco products is the Philip Morris Co., which
also happens to be the largest private employer in
Wisconsin.
By 1997, Thompson had received more than $60,000 in
campaign contributions from the tobacco giant. In return, he
has strongly defended tobacco industry interests, regularly
vetoing legislation it opposed.
The goals of Tommy Thompson, the Bradley Foundation and
the Republican Party are basically the same as the present
goals of the entire U.S. ruling class: the complete
deregulation of corporations, privatization of public
services and an entrenched social stratification.
The Democrats work towards the same goals in a slower,
more diffuse way, while the Republicans are more aggressive
and focused. Opposing Thompson's nomination won't of itself
stop the agenda of the ruling class, but it could be a factor
in igniting a mass movement against the ruling class as a
whole.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS
:: SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page