HARRISBURG — Jake Fleming had nothing: He would wash up in the bathroom of a fast-food joint and, as he tells it, didn't have 99 cents to buy a hamburger.
Determined to leave behind 30 years of alcohol and drug addiction, he entered detox for eight days in February 2008 and then lived in a recovery house while he sought daily addiction treatment for nine months.
Pennsylvania's Depression-era cash assistance program that he credits with paying his way back into the land of the living is now on Gov. Tom Corbett's chopping block, while Republican-controlled Harrisburg is poised to shift the cash instead toward tax cuts for businesses and a business tax credit that helps subsidize private school scholarships.
"That saved my life," Fleming said. "I wouldn't be talking to you today if it wasn't for General Assistance. That's how a lot of alcohol and drug addicts are. They have nowhere else to turn."
Fleming, of Philadelphia, is now a peer specialist and case manager at Northeast Treatment Centers, the place where he recovered. He's caring for his 14-year-old daughter and, he said, has repaid tenfold the meager $200-a-month General Assistance checks by paying taxes.
Fleming's story is the kind that advocates for this program are trying to impress upon lawmakers and the governor.
In May, a coalition of more than 100 groups — including the AARP, United Way, Pennsylvania Prison Society, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and a spectrum of advocates for organized religions — asked Corbett and lawmakers to reconsider.
They've refused.
General Assistance is the "last gasp" for nearly 70,000 of Pennsylvania's least fortunate residents and is the last link in the state's safety net, said Stephen Drachler, executive director of United Methodist Advocacy in Pennsylvania.
"Every decision that our leaders are making in this process is a moral choice," Drachler said. "I do think it's a sad state of affairs when government abdicates a moral responsibility to help those who are the most in need."
In February, when the state's fiscal outlook was more challenging, Corbett proposed eliminating the $150 million General Assistance program, which ends up costing more like $126 million a year after the federal government reimburses Pennsylvania for recipients who eventually qualify for Social Security disability benefits.
Administration officials reasoned that programs for the poor were rising in cost faster than the state could afford, and it was easy to cut General Assistance because it isn't mandated by the federal government and most other states don't provide it.
However, tax collections have since improved. As a result, state lawmakers proposed fattening 2012-13 fiscal year spending by more than a half-billion dollars to undo cuts in subsidies that Corbett had proposed, including for universities, public schools, county-run social services, the racehorse industry, medical research, retailers that collect sales taxes and hospitals and nursing homes that care for the poor.
They even erased a $12 million cut for the Legislature that Corbett proposed, even though the Legislature nurses a cash reserve well in excess of $100 million.
The nearly $27.7 billion budget plan that Corbett and leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature shook hands on last week would increase overall spending in 2012-13 by about 1.5 percent. That is below the average increase of 2.2 percent for states projected by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.
The spending plan also would cut $275 million in taxes for businesses and would double to $150 million a tax-credit program that rewards businesses for contributing to nonprofit groups that offer scholarships to students who transfer to private schools or to public schools outside their home district.
Meanwhile, the plan would leave almost $400 million in reserve when the next fiscal year ends on June 30, 2013.
The package of budget bills looks like it will pass right before Sunday, when the 2012-13 fiscal year begins, meaning that many recipients are likely to receive no official notice before they miss a check. Department of Public Welfare spokeswoman Carey Miller said that if the benefit is eliminated, the agency will send letters to recipients.
One of those recipients is Brenda Freeman of Philadelphia.
At 38, she has been on General Assistance since November and is hoping to secure Social Security disability status because of peripheral edema — a painful condition that involves swelling tissue in her legs and arm. She last worked as a security guard in 2009, when she was laid off, she said, and losing General Assistance will mean being unable to supplement the means provided by food stamps for her and her husband, who is also on Social Security disability.
"I guess I'll have to go to food pantries," Freeman said, "and there's hardly any of those left anymore."
For addicts, Fleming said ending General Assistance will effectively flush them into shelters, jails and hospitals if they no other way to afford treatment.
"The impact is going to be enormous," Fleming said.
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