The Man Who Gave Us Welfare Reform
BAUER, GARY
The Man Who Gave Us Welfare Reform Robert B. Carleson, 1931-2006. by GARY BAUER REAGANAUTS found themselves in mourning again last week as another of the Gipper's loyal servants unexpectedly...
...He was, in fact, a passionate man, which is not surprising since we worked for a president who was passionate about freedom and America...
...A glowing Washington Times editorial the day before the memorial service referred to him as "the Quiet Giant," and it was an apt description...
...But that didn't stop Reagan from announcing that reform was indeed at the top of the agenda, because the state was facing a "fiscal and human disaster...
...Armed with Carleson's insightful analysis, Governor Reagan mobilized taxpayers and even threatened to put welfare reform on the ballot...
...Taxpayers were being hit with a bill for $2.5 billion a year...
...The search led to a relatively obscure deputy director of the California Department of Public Works, Bob Carleson...
...California's welfare system was exploding, having added over one-and-a-half million Gary Bauer, director of the Office of Policy Development at the Reagan White House, currently leads the public policy group American Values...
...Like most conservatives, he had to endure constant attacks from the political left, which attempted to smear him, along with Reagan, as cruel and hard-hearted...
...Yet Bob is considered by many to be the man who had the most to do with Ronald Reagan's journey from the governorship of California to the Oval Office...
...Bob Carleson was seldom in the headlines during his years on the Reagan team and had no hunger for the spotlight...
...The Democrats screamed in opposition...
...In short order, Bob put together a task force that quickly delivered a plan to the governor that would help the truly needy while stopping the explosion in welfare bureaucracy and dependency...
...In his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan pointed to the Carleson reform plan as his greatest policy achievement in California...
...Over the next three years the Carleson reform plan produced a decline of 300,000 in the welfare rolls, while aid for the truly needy actually went up...
...This was compassionate conservatism way ahead of its time...
...Bob wanted the poor to have their dignity restored through work and education...
...people to the rolls in the previous ten years...
...In true "me too" Republican form, the White House was headed down the same dead-end road of the past, with a national welfare plan built on failed liberal ideas...
...Surprisingly, the reform Carleson set in motion gained momentum that kept going long after Ronald Reagan left office...
...But Carleson cared so much about the poor that he devoted the majority of his adult life to trying to reform the failed programs that were creating generational poverty and cycles of dependency...
...In 1996, President Clinton, facing a GOP-controlled Congress committed to many of Carleson's ideas, finally caved and signed a national welfare reform bill...
...The legislature was in the hands of Democrats, who were ready to defend the failed system against any reform...
...In true Reagan fashion, the president decided to put together a reform team that was as far removed from the welfare establishment as possible...
...The Nixon administration wasn't happy, either...
...In fact, so successful was the Reagan model developed by Car-leson that it helped launch the governor onto the national political stage...
...As we worked together in the "Reagan Revolution," it became clear to me that Bob Carleson was no mere number-cruncher or policy wonk...
...In short, Ronald Reagan and his trusted aide, Carleson, were opposed by everyone—except the people of California...
...He was also passionate about the poor...
...And in the process he remembered that every dollar that went to help the truly needy came out of the pockets of America's taxpayers...
...At the beginning of Reagan's second term as governor, the state was facing a welfare crisis...
...Eventually, the entrenched welfare lobby saw the writing on the wall and folded...
...The "Quiet Giant" had prevailed again...
...Hundreds of the old Reagan team gathered in the rotunda of the Ronald Reagan Trade Center, just a few blocks from the White House, to share a few tears and a few laughs, as a dozen old friends, led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, reflected on Car-leson's life and contributions to the Reagan revolution...
...When Reagan won, he brought Carleson with him to the White House as special assistant to the president for policy development...
...by GARY BAUER REAGANAUTS found themselves in mourning again last week as another of the Gipper's loyal servants unexpectedly passed away...
...He wanted to empower them by giving them the same choice that all Americans have...
...Bob had an incredible love for our country, believing, as Reagan did, that we had a special "rendezvous with destiny" that required us to be a "shining city on a hill...
...Hard on the heels of the deaths of Caspar Weinberger and Lyn Nofziger came the sad news that Robert B. Carleson, architect of Reagan's welfare reform, had succumbed to complications from recent surgery...
...It was there that Bob and I met and became friends...
Vol. 11 • May 2006 • No. 32
