Welfare Reform: Liberals Were Chicken Littles

Liberals, either by design or simply because they believe in wrong ideas, often make outrageous statements. Yet they are seldom held accountable. Scott Stanley, now deputy managing editor of Insight Magazine, when he was editor of a publication called "Review of the News," was the only media person to systematically juxtapose what liberals said with what really happened.

Well, the House Majority Leader, Dick Armey, has borrowed a leaf from Stanley and in a "Dear Colleague" letter examined what the liberals said about welfare reform as enacted in 1996 vs. the reality of what really took place since the bill was passed. It is only fair that Armey should perform this task, since every time the massive Clinton tax increase of 1993 is mentioned, a dozen liberals pop up out of nowhere to remind Armey that he had predicted a terrible recession if the bill was passed. We had no recession and instead enjoyed record prosperity. Armey counters that the recession was avoided because the Republicans gained control of the Congress in 1994, cut spending, and passed tax cuts which avoided the recession.

But I digress. Back to the welfare reform measure, which the GOP Congress passed in 1996. The first time around, Clinton vetoed the measure. The GOP Congress passed it again with minor changes, and Clinton vetoed that bill as well. For a third time, the Republicans in Congress made a few small changes to the bill and sent it to the president's desk. Dick Morris, who at that time was still advising Clinton, told him he had better sign this welfare bill or risk losing the election to Bob Dole, who was prepared to make Clinton's 1992 pledge "to end welfare as we know it" a major issue in his campaign against Clinton. Clinton reluctantly signed the measure. Now, it is up for re-authorization.

So as this is debated in Congress, Armey went back into his files and this is what he found:

Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, called the bill that Clinton signed an "outrage...that will hurt and impoverish millions of American children." She went on to say that the welfare reform act would leave a "moral blot" on Clinton's presidency and on our nation itself which will never be forgotten.

What actually happened, according to the Majority Leader, is that there are 2.3 million fewer children living in poverty than there were in 1996. Armey added sarcastically that the "moral blot" on the Clinton Presidency had nothing to do with welfare reform.

Meanwhile, back then The Urban Institute predicted that the welfare reform bill would push 2.6 million more people into poverty and cause eight million families to lose income. And Patricia Ireland, the then-president of the National Organization for Women, predicted that the bill Clinton signed, "places 12.8 million people on welfare at risk of sinking further into poverty and homelessness." Peter Edelman, then Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS, resigned his post in protest over what Clinton had done, claiming that the welfare reform law would do serious injury to American children and create "more crime, increased infant mortality and increased drug and alcohol abuse." He also predicted an increase in family violence and abuse against children and women.

What really happened, according to Armey, is that there are 4.2 million fewer people living in poverty today than in 1996, despite the recession.

The poverty rate among single mothers is at the lowest point in U.S. history. Crime has gone down over this same period, and the Department of Agriculture says there are nearly 2 million fewer hungry children now than in 1996. Employment of young single mothers has about doubled and employment of mothers without a high school diploma has increased by 60%.

The share of children living in single mother families has fallen, while the share living in married couple families has increased, with no correlated increase in abuse against women and children.

And finally, the out of wedlock birth rate has remained flat for the past five years and has actually decreased among the African-American community.

That is quite a record, and one that directly contradicts the predictions of the experts.

Now Robert Carleson, who was Ronald Reagan's welfare director in California in the 1970s when Reagan became famous for welfare reform which worked and who also handled Reagan's welfare reform work when he was president, has this advice for the Congress as it now considers re-authorization: Leave the Bill alone. It is working. Don't try to fix it.

Carleson, who helped to draft the 1996 bill and who is now a senior fellow at the Free Congress Foundation, said he could think of ways to improve the measure here and there but once that Pandora's Box is opened, it paves the way for all sorts of revisions by the liberals which will end up destroying the good work this bill has accomplished.

Meanwhile now that Armey is leaving the Congress and must find gainful employment, I suggest a three times a week column to be also taped for radio and television, which would compare statements made over the years by liberals compared with what really has happened. The Cold War would be a splendid point to begin such a project.

You seem to be espousing more welfare. I couldn't disagree more.

Remove the kids from the irresponsible biological parents if they aren't self supporting within two years. There are plenty of folks who would adopt and they should be given irrevocable custody, except for clear mental or physical abuse. Temporarily sterilize the irresponsible indiscriminate breeders (Norplant, et al.) until they are self supporting and can support any kids they create. This type of "family" produces the vast majority of criminals. Cut it off at the source.

While my solution is clearly too radical and intrusive, the idea of further vacuuming my pockets to support irresponsible breeding is also too radical and intrusive. Parasites don't deserve first dibs in the choice category.

I see no argument with your principles. Now how do we place them into operation? Further, how do we keep people who can't support their kids from further procreation? They have a right to have sex - they do not have a right to create lives they will not support. How do we stop them?

I don't see a magic bullet. I'm not willing to go in for totalitarian measures like China and I don't see such measures being supported in America. In practice that means decent people who believe in equal justice are over a barrel so to speak. But we're not totally helpless.

I think we have to think longer term. First step IMO is to acknowledge in our everyday speech and mores that parents have obligations to kids they co-create. Never, ever verbally in any way shape or form give the impression we don't believe in personal responsibility. Don't cut anyone any slack whatsoever. This is really important because what we have to do is change the mindset that people in the US have come to believe that no matter the problem, it's always the other persons's fault. Pass the buck is our real national passtime, not baseball.

The next thing I would do is go into the schools and pound it into our kids that if they create a new life they WILL BE held accountable. Both parents, 50/50. No exceptions. I would NOT indoctrinate our young people to believe that inequity is OK. Making others pay (especially young children) for your part mistakes will NOT be tolerated. To me this is non-negotiable. If you create a kid, you create automatic obligations for yourself for at least the next 18 YEARS! This point cannot be made often enough in our schools and it has to be equal, 50/50 down the line obligation. The last thing we need to be teaching children is how to pass the buck onto someone else.

And we need to follow through with this, make sure both boys and girls know that society holds them accountable for their actions. There should be zero doubt about how serious we are about this. We could start by making kids accountable for all their actions from Kindergarden on up, not just OOW pro-creation. This sets the tone early on and conditions kids to believe they will be held personally accountable.

Basically, I take a stance similar to Bush's stance on terrorism. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. There are NO nuetral parties. IMO, making excuses for bad behavior and letting people off with zero accountability makes one part of the problem.

These kind of behavior modification plans aimed at only women have never worked. What actually happens is you create a perminent underclass of people, women and their children, which feeds the cycle of poverty and dispair.

If you go to any developing country where there is no social safety net for OOW kids or orphans, you see the most horrible things in the streets. I've been to many of these places and I can say I don't want to walk out my door and be confrtonted with such destitution and crime in my own country.

Funny, you didn't see the kinds of horror you describe in the US prior to the enactment of the AFDC system in the 1960s. What happened then is that girls tended to be careful to not get pregnant, because the consequences of unwed motherhood were unpleasant. They didn't have that many abortions, girls of reasonable intelligence just deferred having sex with any male that came along. Girls waited until somebody came along that seemed to be good husband-material. If one got pregnant anyway, the kid was adopted and raised by a relative

I realize that you have your own ideas of what is fair, proper, and just. But, guess what? They don't work.

Looking at the entire extent of recorded human history, only one thing has reliably worked: women not having sex with a man unless he was good husband-material, getting married, and then putting in the effort to make the marriage work. I realize this does not appeal to you. But any other approach will just wreck the whole society

Welfare only works as long as the number of welfare recipients is small compared to the number of productive taxpayers. Once a threshold is reached, the system breaks down. More and more taxpayers decide "Enough! I don't care anymore about any kids but mine. Either their own families support them, or they die". Then we have a much bigger situation with more hardship, than if we changed the incentive system before everything broke down

Great points!

Unfortunately for many people, we live in a democractic republic, not a dictatorship. So, we either have to accept everyone as equal citizens under the law or change our form of government.

What happened in times past was that women were unequally sanctioned and shamed (relative to men who procreated OOW), forced to give birth in secret and forced to give up children. Girls/women were also forced by family memebers to abort. We also had orphanages where children shuffled off. Everything was swept under the carpet and kept hush-hush. I don't see this aspect of our past as something to glorify and emmulate.

Also, I don't see advocating two different sets of laws and policies based on gender as being a good thing. We can see how this system has worked out in places like Nigeria where women are stoned to death for OOW sex but her partner is not even so much as fined. No thanks, but people who want to live in a system like that are free to immigrate.

Also, why is it so common for men like you to completely ignore their own personal responsibility in their comments regarding procreation. Conservatives talk about personal responsibity but when we get right down to the nitty gritty, what many of them mean is an exemption for men. Besides being unfair, this portrays a lack of integrity IMO and makes Conservatives look bad and their word worth toilet paper.

And why can't we expect men to be responsible for their own moral behaviour, and woman hers? Why do we expect women to police everyone's behavior in addition to her own? Is it because some men's behavior is so irresponsible and they are such weasels that they need a scapegoat to blame for it?

Well, this is unfair. What's more it can be changed and the system made more fair by universal DNA testing at birth. Are you suggesting we not try to correct inequity and injustice in our society?

The greatest acts of horror and mass-murder in the last few centuries were committed by people who decided to overturn systems that worked (but were perceived as "unfair" by certain members of the intelligensia) in favor of systems that were more "fair" (but which didn't work)

From the Terror of the French Revolution, to the deliberate famines in the Ukraine, to the Killing Fields of Cambodia, tens of millions of people have been murdered because somebody felt that they stood in the way of "fairness"

No thank you. I'm not interested in being fair. I'm interested in systems that are self-regulating via negative feedback, rather than systems that need a police state watching over each individual to ensure he behaves "fairly"

As I've been saying, I'm interested in workability more than "fairness". I prefer a system where there may be some degree of inequality, but the average person is reasonably prosperous, and is able to live, work, and raise a family in peace -- to a system where everyone is equally poor, miserable, and in fear of being killed. You may have different preferences -- to each their own

The facts of life are that, wherever "fairness" has been given preference over workability, the result has been poverty, death --- and even more "unfairness" as the "fairness enforcement" parts of the system are taken over by people who are good at working the system to their own advantage

"The facts of life are that, wherever "fairness" has been given preference over workability, the result has been poverty, death --- and even more "unfairness""

This is untrue. Our entire country was founded on principles of "fairness". No taxation without representation, "equality and justice for all"... "equality and justice for all" .... any of those ring a bell? I wouldn't say the USA has been a failure or led to poverty, death and more unfairness. To the contrary we have become the richest nation on earth, with the best health care, the most fair legal system. There is less "unfairness" here than anywhere else in the world, so "fairness" has worked out pretty good for us all relative to other eras and other places in the world. I don't see any reason not to continue on this path.

Also, remember Thomas Jefferson was profoundly influenced by witnessing the French Revolution first hand. It inspired him (as well as many of our Founders) toward the principles of fairness that they set forth in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The founding of our country was a specific repudiation of systems that had been in place for thousands of years, monarchies and "caste" systems of social heirarchies. Our very Founders rejected systems that had "worked" for thousands of years. They decided to go out on a limb; to try something radically and completely different that had never been tried before, all based on principles of fairness and equality.

"I don't see advocating two different sets of laws and policies based on gender as being a good thing.

Christian principles do advacate different standards and norms. The ideal of a patriarchal system of government, bestows the natural right of guardianship on the father. This is the system of government that was taken for granted by the founders of this country. When a father may be stripped of this natural right without due process, the system breaks down (please ask me how). That's what has occurred in this country, and that is what "SauronOfMordor" sees as our catalyst for revolt. I'm not being over the edge here, at all. That's the very principle behind natural law. You can try to avoid the truth of the matter, but look at what that has accomplished.

Christian principles do advacate different standards and norms. The ideal of a patriarchal system of government, bestows the natural right of guardianship on the father.

Well assuming that this country is set up on "Christian" principles, where are all these Christian fathers and why aren't they doing any of this "guardianship"? If men are the natural patriarchs, the ones who are charged with looking out for everyone else, then why are we blaming everything on women? If you're a "gaurdian" and a "patriarch" that means you're the leader and the buck stops at your door. Were is the leadership? All I see is sissy whining about the behaviour or women but no trace of accountablity for the erstwhile natural patriarchs or leaders. If you're a leader, you take responsibitiy. If you run for cover, you're not a leader.

This is the system of government that was taken for granted by the founders of this country. When a father may be stripped of this natural right without due process,.....

How is the father "stripped" of due process if he isn't even around? Who is doing the stripping?

.... the system breaks down (please ask me how).

Ok how? And please explain how the parent who is abdicating responsibility is the one who is being "wronged" or stripped of something. It seems to me it is the child, if anyone, who is being stripped by the parent abdicating his/her obligations.

That's the very principle behind natural law.

Our laws are man made and as such are subject to the whims of the people in charge of making them. Which is why if you're not part of the law making process, you're most likely out of luck. That is why more people want to be part of the political process, because they don't trust a ruling elite to act in their best interest. In fact, they KNOW from experience that when they were not part of the process their "guardianship" was not all it was cracked up to be. Take a spin around the world looking at "patriarchal" countries. You've got poverty to the max, abuse, child abuse and sexual exploitation, slavery. You name it. Elitist systems only "work" from the perspective of the elite. That is why our non-elitist country has a line wrapping around the globe 10 times of people trying to get in. I sure don't see them lining up to live in countries with traditional "patriarchal" rule.

This was also the principle behind our system of 3 branches of govenment ... to avoid a monarchy or ruling elite from forming, and the principle behind our system of representantive democracy and term limits, so no one person or group could gain an absolute hold on power. The reason is our Founders had the good sense to know that absolute power currupts absolutely. This "rule" holds true on all levels.

Well assuming that this country is set up on "Christian" principles, where are all these Christian fathers and why aren't they doing any of this "guardianship"? If men are the natural patriarchs, the ones who are charged with looking out for everyone else, then why are we blaming everything on women? If you're a "gaurdian" and a "patriarch" that means you're the leader and the buck stops at your door. Were is the leadership? All I see is sissy whining about the behaviour or women but no trace of accountablity for the erstwhile natural patriarchs or leaders. If you're a leader, you take responsibitiy. If you run for cover, you're not a leader.

I'm sorry, I can't read past this. See ya.

Also, remember Thomas Jefferson was profoundly influenced by witnessing the French Revolution first hand. It inspired him (as well as many of our Founders) toward the principles of fairness that they set forth in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The Declaration was written in 1776. The Constitution was written in 1787. The French Revolution started in 1789.

The French Revolution revolved around establishing "equality" in an economic sense. It proved to be a bloody prelude to the Russian Revolution

The American Revolution revolved around the small property owners of the US wanting to keep their property, and be left alone by large central governments. I would think the American revolution was more successsful than the bloody horror that engulfed France and its neighbors during the Napoleanic years

This is untrue. Our entire country was founded on principles of "fairness". No taxation without representation, "equality and justice for all"... "equality and justice for all" .... any of those ring a bell? I wouldn't say the USA has been a failure or led to poverty, death and more unfairness. To the contrary we have become the richest nation on earth, with the best health care, the most fair legal system. There is less "unfairness" here than anywhere else in the world, so "fairness" has worked out pretty good for us all relative to other eras and other places in the world. I don't see any reason not to continue on this path.

The Americans did not copy the French -- the French tried to copy parts of the American Revolution, but when they adopted the goal of "equality of condition" rather than "equality of rights", things went a bit sour. This happens EVERYWHERE that the productive are robbed to support the unproductive. Note that I'm talking about robbery (ie the tax-man grabs your stuff at threat of armed violence), rather than voluntary charity. Back when the indigent were supported by charity rather than taxes (before the Welfare State), we did not have Calcutta-like starvation in the US, nor did we have large masses of unproductive welfare recipients

You are (deliberately or not) putting out the classic Marxist argument which confuses "equality of rights" (ie, a poor man having the same protection against violence and fraud by a rich man, as vice-versa) with "equality of condition" (if someone has less than average, the State may forcibly take away stuff from someone who has more than average). The former creates peace, prosperity, and security. The latter creates poverty and death wherever it is tried.

No, I'm not confusing the two. With regard to taxes going to welfare AT ALL, is not taxation without representation because we as a body of voters have voted to fund welfare! If we want, we can vote NOT to fund welfare. That would be equally valid under our system of government. But this was not the original discussion we were having.

The original discussion was WHO is responsible for kids created. You seemed to think it was only the mother and that the mother and children should suffer the consequences with no help either from welfare or the support of the father. This is a fundemental flaw in the concept of "personal responsibility". It weakens the whole case. Either every individual is responsible for his/her actions and their consequences, or no one is. Fish or cut bait.

As well, the concept of unilataral responsibility for children has NEVER WORKED. Absolutely never. The result of large numbers of fathers abandoning their obligations to their young has been infanticide, abortion and of course extreme poverty which leads to illiteracy, drugs, crime, basicaly the breakdown of the entire social order.... and the cycle continues to the next generation.

Note: I'm not saying women are blameless. Absolutely not. What I'm saying is the problem is complex and involves BOTH parties to irresponsible, unsustainable child creation. It can only be unraveled and solved by holding both parties responsible for their conduct and its consequences.

So, whether we keep the welfare system or not, we still face the same problems. How to end this cycle? In my personal opinion (and reluctantly believe me) we need to keep welfare because it buys all of us a measure of safety and a more civil life. I wish we didn't have to ante up to live in a civil decent society, but IMO we do. It is part of the "infrastructure" cost if you will for the high standard of life most of us want. The alternatives to not paying are just plain lousy.

If I could, my first choice would be to somehow make both parents meet their obligations to their kids, not welfare, or as little welfare as possible. I'd like to see us move in that direction. To do that we have to rebuild our entire culture to one which harps on "personal responsibility" of parents to the children they co-create. Actually personal responsibility in all realms.

The original discussion was WHO is responsible for kids created. You seemed to think it was only the mother and that the mother and children should suffer the consequences with no help either from welfare or the support of the father. This is a fundemental flaw in the concept of "personal responsibility". It weakens the whole case. Either every individual is responsible for his/her actions and their consequences, or no one is. Fish or cut bait.

My original point was that women bear some responsibility for who they choose to conceive children with. I agree that a husband and father has a responsibility to his kids. This has been the pattern in US society up until around the 1960's.

Prior to the 1960's, a husbandless mother with young kids would rely on relatives, her church, or private charity to help out. The consequences of husbandless parenting were sufficiently bad that women were more selective in who they had kids by, and tended to get married. This kept the level of illegitimacy sufficiently low that husbandless women COULD be supported by their families (since there would be at most one woman in the extended family at any point in time) without creating hardship for the extended family

Then welfare came along. Low-income men discovered that welfare benefits added up to more than they could contribute to a family from a minimum-wage job, and the result was an explosion in illegitimacy

No, I'm not confusing the two. With regard to taxes going to welfare AT ALL, is not taxation without representation because we as a body of voters have voted to fund welfare!

If I could convince a majority of voters to send you to the gas chambers, would you go along with that as proper, since we as a body have voted for it? How about re-instituting slavery? That had the support of the majority of the voting population in the US at one time.

Read again what I wrote in #37. You ARE confusing the two. "Equality of rights" means that what is legal for A is also legal for B, and what's illegal for A is also illegal for B. "Equality of condition" means that if A is economicly worse off than B, then it is legitimate to take away some of B's stuff without B's consent and give it to A. I support the former. The latter is the classic Marxist viewpoint, which I reject

You keep saying that we would have a horrible situation without AFDC and the rest of the Welfare State. Prior to the 1960's we did not have AFDC, and we did not have a horrible situation.

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