Capitol Ideas / Welfare Wizards
Bethell, Tom
Welfare Wizards by Tom Bethell ome may not recall the feverish agitation in the press when Ronald Reagan became president. Every day there was this great whirring of wings, this incessant whine...
...The liberals brilliantly feigned defeat: wrestled to the ground by that old wizard in the White House...
...Both Robert Rector and Charles Murray point out that the defects of this bill closely resemble those of the 1988 law—proof, if any more is needed, that Republicans are incapable of learning from experience...
...This put some workers with Medicaid side by side with others without it...
...Thomas Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...What has happened to the rolls since then...
...welfare is that benefit levels are so high that people can only with difficulty be induced to leave the rolls...
...Take a job and they may lose their benefits...
...Hence the recent welfare explosion...
...The other day, one youth accused of killing another offered the defense of "ghetto stress syndrome...
...It signaled a great crisis: Reagan might actually cut back the welfare state...
...The Black Caucus would vote against it, but liberal Republicans just might ensure passage...
...He threatened to hold health care hostage unless the administration took welfare reform seriously...
...That was popular, no doubt helped get him elected...
...Their livelihoods consist in doling it out...
...As in 1988, the new "work requirements" are postponed until five years after enactment...
...This is a "Henry Waxman trick" intended to place the cost of the new programs beyond the field of vision of the Office of Management and Budget, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation points out...
...PO Box 667 Mount Morris, IL 61054-7529 ^ I enclose$24.95...
...Every day there was this great whirring of wings, this incessant whine of indignation...
...The great error made in the 1988 negotiations (insisted on by Rep...
...There were no cuts...
...When he decides to twist arms there's not much we can do...
...The agitation went on for the better part of Reagan's first year...
...WHAT IS IT...
...W hat is in the Republican bill...
...In the Senate, there were ninety-three yeas, three nays...
...The Family Support Act, it was called...
...The administration jumped to attention, but the original strategy of deception surely survived...
...The Democrats know that as usual they will have the power to riddle the whole thing with loopholes...
...THERE IS AWAY FOR SANE, INTELLIGENT PEOPLE TO GET THE RIGHT NEWS AND ANALYSIS TODAY...
...THEN FOLLOW ITS ADVICE BY FILLING OUT THE COUPON BELOW AND MAILING IT IN...
...No, we don't...
...Hence Clinton's political difficulty with welfare...
...It hasn't worked," Congresswoman Jan Meyers of Kansas told me...
...SPINNING EVENTS TO PROMOTE THEIR AGENDA...
...And the program has cost us $10 billion more than expected—$13 billion instead of $3 billion...
...It's quiet, notice...
...EVERY DAY...
...It was predicted that the number of families on AFDC would not reach five million until late 1998...
...The whole Hive was in a state of unprecedented uproar...
...If that were all there was to the story, there would be no great problem...
...How come there were no squawks from the Children's Defense Fund, the American Public Welfare Association, the National Association of Social Workers, Peter Jennings, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek...
...Bennett points out that the problem with welfare is "not that too many unmarried women are not working," but that too many are having babies...
...If there is no uproar, the "end of welfare as we know it" is nowhere in sight...
...Foreign ordersadd $12.00 per subscription...
...Do we like it...
...Charles Murray's elucidation followed in the Wall Street Journal...
...Believe me, if a proposal to throw people off welfare after two years was anywhere near the drawing boards there would be the most unbelievable uproar you ever heard in your life...
...That was what it was all about...
...If you want to know what's afoot with welfare policy, then, you don't need to slog through all those newspaper articles (unless you're a social worker, of course...
...For the Democrats' "core constituency," it is vital that welfare-as-we-know-it be preserved...
...The black rank-and-file would no doubt love welfare reform, but they're out of the picture because they have placed their trust in leaders who in turn have been bought off with gerrymandered districts, patronage, affirmative-action programs: in a word, with power...
...But failure to deliver on his welfare promise would only hurt Clinton...
...and get my FREE copy of "The Clinton Health Plan — Second Opinions...
...BUT DON'T FRET...
...T here was just one little detail that I couldn't help noticing...
...Return to: National Review Subscription Dept...
...He would be the toast of Washington: At last, Strange New Respect for Newt...
...First of all, heed the Geiger counter...
...Workfare" can become "a covert way of passing a large new daycare program," as the Washington Post noted...
...There would be much talk of bipartisanship, Clinton would take credit for moving to the center, and the relevant Republicans—particularly Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Clay Shaw of Florida, and Fred Grandy of Iowa, in addition to DeLay and Santorum—would be invited to the Rose Garden for the signing ceremony...
...Welfare's apologists say that this increase was caused by the recession...
...Less than one percent of the welfare population is working today...
...First, work requirements...
...If you don't hear that furious clicking and whirring, you know there's no threat to existing arrangements...
...But I never forgot the uproar, and later the recollection of it has served as a kind of Geiger counter for public policy...
...What they have brought with them is a welfare-reform package very much like the 1988 disaster—one that would again expand welfare in the guise of reforming it...
...But Democrats secretly smile at the jobs program they see coming down the pike...
...As Charles Murray adds, a mushy reform will not only expand the welfare rolls but kill the subject for another five years...
...Hey, the old man had finally managed to get the welfare establishment to accept work requirements...
...Mostly asleep, but a formidable adversary at times...
...But that milestone was reached early in 1993...
...NATURALLY,"RIGHT-WINGERS" ARE BUT FICTIONAL CARTOON CHARACTERS IN THE WORLD OF THE FOURTH ESTATE, CAST AS HEARTLESS RACISTS, RELIGIOUS FANATICS, AND CAPITALISTS WHO YEARN TO KEEP THE POOR POOR...
...Pretty tough right-wing medicine was about to be administered, folks...
...Ronald Reagan was still on the case...
...The Republicans duly retired to their favorite watering hole, Chumps and Charleys...
...The effort to delay welfare legislation so that it does not interfere with the Administration's primary goal of health care, while not acknowledged publicly, has been evident in a number of recent Administration actions and was discussed at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, officials said...
...The main problem with U.S...
...What has been happening on the welfare front...
...That is cause for celebration...
...In a well-intentioned attempt to make it easier for people to get off welfare, the legislation had unexpectedly (to Republicans) made it easier for new people to get on welfare...
...simply fold the page as shown here a lb ^ YES, I wantto begin my 16-issue subscription to National Review (at only $24.95—a big savings of 36% off the regular rate...
...It's interesting to note, by the way, that Democratic activists are located at the "core" of the party, while analogous Republicans are marginalized on "the far right...
...But you know how Reagan is...
...Some of the latter would be induced to quit their jobs and go on welfare, then resume working and share in the benefits enjoyed by their subsidized co-workers...
...No Democratic welfare bill has yet been proposed...
...Date Signature Make all chec6payable to National Review...
...Republicans still haven't noticed that these lead straight to: government jobs programs, training programs, and day care...
...REALLY, WE'RE BESEIGED BY THE LIBERAL VIEW...
...See, welfare reform won't cost very much at all," the Republican moderates tell themselves...
...commissioner of welfare and Ronald Reagan's welfare director in California...
...In paying for these illegitimate births, and in providing the mothers with a package of benefits more generous than the fathers are normally capable of providing, the welfare state has cuckolded the ghetto male and thereby has imposed enormous costs on society...
...Newspaper stories at the time were telling us that welfare was, finally and once and for all, going to be reformed...
...Republicans must begin by preventing the President from packaging status quo policies as major reform," Empower America noted in a memo that finally sets the politics of welfare straight...
...APT PORTRAYALS OF THE LIBERAL MEDIA, NO...
...Enter next a strange posse of Republicans, led by Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Tom DeLay of Texas, riding to the Democrats', rescue...
...A few weeks later the Times almost gave the game away when it hailed this "rare social policy step forward in the Reagan era...
...And Newt Gingrich, who now appears to have become more solicitous of the liberal wing of the GOP than his own core constituency, would surely be conspicuously in the picture, standing right behind the president...
...Henceforth, those on welfare would have to work for their benefits...
...Downey, New York Democrat, called it the first "significant change in our welfare system in 53 years...
...In the last five years they have expanded more rapidly than at any time since the late 1960s...
...they would say...
...Tom DeLay's support of the bill is as off as it would be if he were promoting Senator John Chafee's health plan...
...All you have to do is glance at the headlines...
...EVERYWHERE...
...The new Republican bill would cause another such expansion, because it would allow those on welfare who join the work force to "disregard" up to 50 percent of their income before it disqualifies them from receiving benefits...
...Here was this supposedly conservative reform being passed, yet the Hive was quiet—tranquil as a summer's day...
...Once again, then, workers receiving government benefits would be placed side by side with others who are not...
...This can only be accomplished by sharpening policy differences, not by blurring them with tepid legislative compromises...
...Then it gradually died down...
...But that is now over, and the rolls have not subsided...
...Another grave defect is pointed out by Robert Carleson, former U.S...
...They said such a 16 The American Spectator June 1994 fold so "a" and "b" JOIN THE RIGHT FOLD meet SUBSTITUTING THEIR LIBERAL BIAS TO DESCRIBE TO YOU THE "NEWS...
...Welfare is indeed the "root cause" of the mounting crisis in our inner cities, and people do sense this...
...Propose something tough, in other words, and let the Democrats reveal their true ideology by voting it down...
...WHEN YOU DO, WE'LL SEND YOU, AS OUR TOKEN OF THANKS, A FREE COPY OF OUR NEW, SPECIAL REPORT," THE CLINTON HEALTH PLAN - SECOND OPINIONS...
...This is a country that is now run by social workers in all but name...
...Fortunately Jack Kemp, Bill Bennett, and others now see the danger and they are calling for something a little tougher...
...To be sure, the campaign cry, "We're going to make them work for their welfare...
...T urn now to President Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it...
...The "income disregards" are so generous that families with income up to about $23,000 a year could become eligible for welfare, Carleson said...
...ON EVERY NETWORK AND IN EVERY PAPER...
...Did they know something that Bob Dole didn't...
...71 18 The American Spectator June 1994...
...Waxman of California at the last minute, which is when the bad things happen: Republicans are too nervous about being called obstructionist to object at that point) was to permit those on welfare who took a job to retain Medicaid benefits for a year...
...Bill me...
...A more sensible proposal will soon be offered by Rep...
...Jim Talent, freshman Republican from Missouri...
...The reform was enacted...
...If nothing passes this year, on the other hand, the pressure will build for something better in the next session of Congress...
...Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, then complained that Clinton had used the welfare issue merely as "boob bait for the Bubbas...
...Work requirements would be added to the system...
...JUST FOLD THE PAGE CONNECT a00 AND 4412 TO FIND THE ANSWER...
...L AS494 strategy would make it unlikely that a major welfare bill would pass Congress this year...
...Charge my: ^ MasterCard ^ Visa Name Address City State Zip Card No Exp...
...The latter felt resentment, and some decided to go on welfare themselves, if only to quitand then retain one year's Medicaid...
...By way of background, here is some fine print from the New York Times of last January 5: The Clinton Administration is trying to devise a strategy that would allow it to appear to be pushing for welfare reform, even while delaying action on a bill until the President's health care plan clears Congress...
...When he dips in the polls, he sets forth to renew the promise: "Two years and out" for those on welfare...
...He added that there really is a welfare crisis, which is not the case with health care, of course...
...And it worked, I regret to say...
...He ventured the "specific prediction that the number of female-headed families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC, the main welfare program] will increase, and increase out of proportion to the growth of the general population...
...They love that briar patch...
...elicits applause from voters...
...CEASELESS...
...Welfare reform may be popular with the "bubbas," but it gives Clinton a headache: it is not popular with what is called the Democrats' "core constituency"—liberal activists and the black leadership...
...The Senate's passage of a welfare reform bill puts the nation on the threshold of a historic change from old policies that foster dependency to new ones designed to promote self-sufficiency," the New York Times artfully editorialized...
...Move forward to 1988...
...There's a possibility, then, that Clinton could, late in the session, slip past his liberal core by adopting the Republican proposal...
Vol. 27 • June 1994 • No. 6
