Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
18 Tremont Street #608 * Boston, MA 02108
Phone: (617) 248-0022 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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*** CLT&G Update ***
Friday, April 18, 1997
They're off and spending that tax surplus already!
I'd feel like a prophet, but we've all come to know Them only too well. With escalating
arrogance, a well-deserved sense of impunity, They don't even feel it necessary to allow a
decent interval between stealing our tax-cuts and buying new voters . . . excuse me, "funding
unmet needs".
Chip Ford
Co-director
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Boston Globe
Friday, April 18, 1997
Metro / Region
House approves stopgap aid to immigrants cut off welfare
By Doris Sue Wong
Globe Staff
All week long, Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran has been warning
legislators to stick to the $18.3 billion bottom line of the fiscal 1998 budget being debated.
Yesterday, he ignored his own warnings.
Responding to what he called the "terrible wrong and tragedy" about to be visited on
thousands of legal immigrants who are being cut off federal welfare programs, the Mattapan
Democrat brokered a $40 million plan to help them.
The compromise, which won unanimous support in the House, would set up a 10-month cash
assistance program for the estimated 12,000 low-income elderly and disabled immigrants in
Massachusetts who will be dropped from federal welfare rolls Aug. 1.
"Today, the state and its elected leadership showed its heart and soul by refusing to
abandon elderly and disabled immigrants, people who could be our parents and
grandparents," said Muriel Heiberger, director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and
Refugee Advocacy Coalition.
The adoption of the program served as the concluding flourish to an otherwise low-key
four-day debate as the House gave final passage to its budget plan and sent it to the Senate.
Accusing Congress and President Clinton of trying to balance the federal budget on the
backs of a frail and vulnerable population, Finneran said he plans to lead a delegation of
House members and religious leaders to Washington in the next few weeks to lobby to
change the 1996 federal welfare law and its restrictions on aid to legal immigrants.
As of Aug. 1, federal assistance will be limited to immigrants who have worked in the United
States at least 10 years or have served in the armed services, and to refugees and
asylum-seekers who have been in this country less than five years.
Finneran said, however, that a response from the state should not encourage Congress to
permanently dump the cost of welfare for immigrants on the states.
For that reason, Finneran said, the compromise "draws a very tight box," offering $338 a
month in state aid to elderly and disabled immigrants who will lose their $600 SSI monthly
benefits and who reside in Massachusetts as of May 1. The aid program would end next
June.
The budget proposal released last week by the House Ways and Means Committee
provided modest medical benefits and food assistance to legal immigrants, which was
considerably less aid than Senate leaders and Governor William F. Weld have backed.
With widespread sentiment among rank-and-file members that more could be done to help
the legal immigrant population, Finneran met with advocates and legislators to reach a
compromise plan.
[ . . . ]
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