FIXING WELFARE: COMMON SENSE, A CLEAR VISION

Welfare was created to provide temporary financial support to families in times of economic trouble. Instead it has become a dead-end way of life for too many Americans, destroying their sense of personal responsibility and creating a dependency on government that is costly to both welfare recipient and the country.Perverse incentives Rather than helping the neediest recover from setback and return to life as taxpaying citizens, welfare currently creates perverse incentives for many Americans on welfare to stay there. Too often, by giving out cash handouts, welfare even encourages destructive behavior like drug use, out-of-wedlock births and family breakup. When Bill Clinton ran for president, he promised to end welfare as we know it. It was one of his most popular campaign slogans, and he made it the centerpiece of his campaign commercials. Once in office, however, Clinton faltered on this promise, shunting the issue aside. Now Republicans have taken the lead on welfare reform, having made it one of their Contract With America goals for the new Congress. They have pledged several heady objectives: Our contract will achieve what some 30 years of massive welfare spending has not been able to accomplish: reduce illegitimacy, require work, and save taxpayers money. Determined not to make the same mistake as the president, the Republicans in Congress have been working hard on welfare reform, and the past two weeks have seen a flurry of welfare reform hearings in Washington, D.C.Emersons role One set of hearings, under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Committee, has been led by Rep. Bill Emerson of Cape Girardeau. On Tuesday, he spoke to his subcommittee about welfare reform. Since he plays a large role with the Republican leadership on this issue, particularly with the issue of food stamps, his comments are worth noting. In the coming weeks the welfare debate will warrant being watched closely. Meanwhile, a word of caution: For those who argue that government should immediately and totally get out of the welfare business, that sentiment denies history. Welfare was created to meet a specific, real need. That need still exists. Failure resulted not by creating welfare, but by creating it badly, centering it at the federal government level and removing all moral groundings to it. There are no easy ways to achieve significant social change, and sudden changes can add their own new problems. For example, would the sudden elimination of assistance to pregnant teen-agers lead to an increase in abortions? Is this a cost worth paying for reform? Rep. Emerson has outlined a plan that would cost less and eliminate the negative incentives of welfare, while still maintaining assistance to those in need. His idea, endorsed by his Republican colleagues, of sending as much as possible to the states is a good one.

EMERSON ON WELFARE:

I believe it is essential to carefully define what is considered to be welfare and which programs should be integrated with one another as we consider reform of the present debilitating system now in place. There are programs that provide public assistance directly to individual families through cash benefits or food coupons; programs providing work or training to get able-bodied people to work; programs that provide meals in schools and other institutional settings; programs that provide distribution of commodities to hungry people; and, programs linking health and food. The actual number of programs available to needy families is in excess of 125, with 80 of these programs considered major programs with a cost in excess of $300 billion in federal, state and local tax dollars. Most needy families coming in to seek public assistance need help in at least three categories: cash and the accompanying medical assistance, food and housing. The rules and regulations for these programs are different and in many cases conflicting. It does not make sense for the federal government to set up programs for poor families and then establish different rules for eligibility. We need one program that provides a basic level of assistance for poor families; sets conditions for receipt of that assistance, including work; and then limits the amount of time families can receive public assistance. Since the problems facing these families in rural Missouri are not the same as those facing families in California, or in New York City or Kansas City, I believe that states must be allowed to define the eligibility criteria for this new program, within the broad guidelines of Congress.Committees take a parochial view of welfare reform and look only to the programs over which they have jurisdiction. For example, Ways and Means sees it as basically Aid for Families with Dependent Children; Economic and Educational Opportunity sees it as job training; Agriculture as food assistance. I do not pretend to have all of the answers to the problems facing us in this welfare reform debate. I do know that I want to cooperate with all committees to develop programs that help able-bodied people receiving assistance become taxpayers, provide benefits to those who cannot work and provide flexibility to those who have the responsibility of administering the program.I consider the one-stop shopping approach compatible with the concept of block grants, giving states the authority to design a comprehensive welfare program under broad guidelines established by Congress, with appropriate accountability to assure proper expenditure of the taxpayers money. States have been the laboratories for change. They can adapt to the unique regional or parochial circumstances much quicker than the federal government.