Editorials
EDITORIALS Tough love? Welfare isn't working. On that, everyone agrees, from the "Devil-take-the-hindmost" crowd to those who live under the system to those who have fought to make it succeed...
...If the numbers are daunting, so are the moral, political, and economic questions associated with welfare: Does welfare create dependency...
...In fact, the number of poor Americans has reached an all-time high (37 million), and in the past four years, the number of people on AFDC-Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the federal government's standard cash grant program for poor families-has jumped by 2.7 million...
...Cutting people's housing or heating allowances may appeal to the numbers crunchers, but these cuts will force the vulnerable on to the streets or into public shelters-both costly to government and dangerous to the people who must use them...
...Should government attempt to provide what families and intermediate groups used to do, and do better...
...Federal funding would be frozen at this year's level for five years, and state matching funds would no longer be required, slashing the program further...
...And when the money ran out, the only entitlement left would be the street...
...Unified, national standards would be done away with...
...Catholic Conference and Catholic Charities have testified before Congress supporting welfare reform, but bom have raised the hardest question: Under the reforms, what happens to the children of the unemployed and the unemployable...
...People need work because it gives them income, dignity, and a sense of purpose...
...To date, the solutions offered by the 104th Congress have been to cut: soon, often, and deep...
...Effective welfare reform will require more than cuts...
...The state's Republican governor, John Engler, has gained national prominence for his success in downsizing the state's welfare system...
...Should welfare be reformed, or should a stake be driven through its heart...
...The bishops took a stand: "We cannot support programs that would deny aid to parents for whom there are no jobs...
...government aid may have limits, but we cannot turn our backs on those in need...
...They suggest the following: Strengthen the eamed-income tax credit...
...Tough it is, but love it's not...
...Until recently it was touted by the Republican leadership as "the ultimate safety net...
...So far, 63 percent of the proposed discretionary cuts will fall on "human services...
...But states shirked their responsibilities in the past...
...This could be a win-win situation...
...Of course, a wide variety of state-based alternatives would spring up under the proposed scenario...
...But according to David Whitman (New Republic, February 6), Engler's welfare-to-work success has been very modest indeed, reducing the state's welfare rolls by only 1 percentage point...
...Some deny that reality in the name of "tough love...
...Still, to overhaul the system is not the same thing as gutting it...
...An additional 27,000 elderly and disabled may lose rent subsidies, and thousands more their heating assistance...
...require young, unmarried mothers to live with their parents or in structured programs...
...But employment has always been and will remain the Achilles' heel of welfare reform...
...Under the Republican contract, it would be replaced by block grants to individual states...
...Initiated to assist the poor temporarily, both the programs and the poor are very much with us...
...The case of Michigan tells a cautionary tale...
...Or take housing...
...The safety net is shrinking to a hanky...
...Second, successful reform will depend on a modicum of consensus among all the players-providers and taxpayers, politicians and recipients...
...Both the U.S...
...States would be able to opt out of the national program, spending would be capped and cut, and the able-bodied person who had not found a job in ninety days would be cut off...
...The keys to successful welfare reform are hard work and jobs, but also a recognition that a certain percentage of people will always be in need, requiring government to help provide basic amenities...
...The aim of welfare reform ought to be building, not simply cutting: creating programs that will prepare welfare recipients for productive work...
...The welfare system is a combination of 336 federal and state programs dealing with everything from health and housing to jobs to birth and death...
...But after that, the consensus vanishes...
...The flaws and abuses of the welfare system have contributed to a deterioration of the nation's "human capital...
...Candidate Bill Clinton's call for a national partnership between business and government to foster jobs remains a critical, un-addressed issue...
...A proposed $7.3 billion cut in HUD funds could lead to 32,000 more homeless families by July...
...On that, everyone agrees, from the "Devil-take-the-hindmost" crowd to those who live under the system to those who have fought to make it succeed {see, Patrick T. Murphy's testimony, page 12...
...that's what led to national programs in the first place...
...But perhaps no longer...
...And lacking jobs, the need for welfare will not go away...
...promote stricter child-support enforcement...
...And can a nation with a $4 trillion debt afford to keep putting money into failed programs...
...The well-being of the nation depends on establishing conditions conducive to the success of all its members...
...The rest have had to depend on federal and local programs that were there to pick up the slack...
...Without an adequate safety net, too many of us in a competitive, technologically driven society will fall on our faces...
...But when private enterprise cannot satisfy these basic requirements, the public sector must step in...
...Now it is likely to be torn apart...
...Take AFDC...
...But if the welfare reform debate is to achieve anything, two givens must be established: First, the poor are fellow human beings...
...If America is to prosper, more of our citizens must lead productive lives...
...Similarly, the food stamp program...
...Has it promoted or supported the nation's rising rate of illegitimacy...
...Obviously, this is a long-term commitment, involving significant outlays...
...Furthermore, of 82,000 people cut from home relief by the Engler administration, only 20 percent have been able to find and hold a steady job after two years' time...
...Another of the governor's touted programs, increasing the proportion of adults on welfare who work, has shown an improvement of only 1.7 percentage points...
...Society needs workers because there is much to be done in a humane and well-ordered polity...
...This is the bottom line...
...The growing number of poor people and the growing disparity between haves and have-nots have led to the impoverishment of the culture...
...end two-parent family penalties...
...Today it is over 14 million, of whom nearly 10 million are children...
Vol. 122 • March 1995 • No. 6
