Sounding Off:

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s Community Commentary on California’s welfare system was disheartening to say the least (“Welfare system is a drain on state,� June 18).

If California “has the most generous welfare benefits and the most lax eligibility criteria of any state,� I wonder what kind of a safety net, if any, other states have.

In California a single mom with two children receives $730 a month plus food stamps. With this overly generous grant she must pay for housing, utilities, transportation, clothing, etc. She must, of course, be a legal resident, have valid Social Security cards for herself and her children, be enrolled in the Cal Works program, which requires her to find work, and report any income she might receive, which then reduces her monthly benefits to less than $730.

Except for a car worth less than $4,000, all of her worldly goods must not be worth more than $2,000. She has a lifetime limit of five years for this help. We challenge DeVore to survive on such a lifestyle.

It has been my experience in working with welfare recipients in Orange County for more than 30 years that the overwhelming majority finds the system demeaning and oppressive, and wants desperately to fund their own lives. For most of them, for a variety of reasons, that is impossible without temporary assistance from the larger society, which claims to believe in the common good.

With help, many welfare moms go on to college and contribute greatly to their communities (Barack Obama’s mother and Harry Potter’s creator, to name two). To target our most vulnerable citizens for the largest budget cuts shames us as a state and questions if California really believes in a just society.

The tax increase DeVore mentions is for only two years. He compares our welfare payments to other states but doesn’t mention that California does not tax oil companies in the same way other oil-producing states do. He also doesn’t mention that California has the third lowest MediCal reimbursement rate of any state in the union.

The question is should we tax big oil or deny children health care and cash assistance? Would $9 or $10 more for our license registration be more painful than seniors and the disabled being denied help, or deserving students not being able to afford college? I think not, and most Californians also would think not.

Hopefully Orange County will soon elect representatives who will work for the good of all. California’s budget crisis belongs to all of us and should be solved without scapegoats and finger pointing.

Most major religions have as a sacred obligation a preferential option for the poor. Wouldn’t it be great if California followed that dictum?

JEAN FORBATH lives in Costa Mesa.