Running County Government like a business means deliberately making a value judgment that it’s better for the county to have people go on welfare than to subsidize their daycare so they can get a job, pay taxes, and otherwise help contribute to the economic engine.
Running government like a business, for Chris Collins’ purposes, means tax breaks and favors for the privileged and wealthy, while making the poor pay the price.
Sometime last year, the Erie County executive’s staff ran the numbers.
They figured they would need an unprecedented $10 million from local taxpayers in 2010 to keep child care subsidies at current levels for working-poor families.
But what if some percentage of those families suddenly lost their subsidies? Would they join the welfare rolls, and how much would that cost local taxpayers?
At most, $1.4 million, the county’s Social Services Department figured. That’s because the federal and state governments pay for the bulk of the welfare grants that provide income for the poor.
In general, for every $25 the county spends, the state and federal governments spend $75 on welfare grants.
Some of the families already receive Medicaid coverage and other safety net supports. But even if many families joined the Medicaid rolls, the county’s cost increases are capped at around 3.5 percent a year. State government assumes the rest.
When County Executive Chris Collins and his Social Services Department focused on child care subsidies they considered unsustainable, they opted to drop some 40 percent of the eligible children, aware of the risk that some working- poor parents will quit their jobs and turn to public assistance because they will be better off.
Even if each of the almost 700 families signed up for safety-net programs — which Social Services experts consider unlikely — county officials knew the cost to local taxpayers would fall well below the $10 million required to keep those day care subsidies at full steam for another year.
Chris Collins. Comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted.