Abstract:
The goal of welfare reform should be: to shrink the welfare system, to eliminate perverse incentives to remain on welfare, and to make work the focus of reform. Many believe the House of Representative's Family Welfare Reform Act of 1987 fails to do that. It proposes $5.2 billion in new spending over five years, most to expand existing welfare programs. Proponents say the new money is an investment, that some money will go to new programs to induce welfare recipients off the rolls and into jobs. Detractors say it amounts to an expanded investment in the status quo.
Introduction:

How much more of an "investment" should American taxpayers make in the welfare system? 
This is the question the House of Representatives is scheduled to take up today when it votes on the Family Welfare Reform Act of 1987. 
The bill proposes $5.2 billion in new spending over five years, and most of that will increase benefits currently received by welfare recipients. 


It appears that what we have here is something of a Trojan horse -- a piece of legislation that is represented as "reform" when all it does is expand existing welfare programs. 
The bill's questionable premise is that larger expenditures on welfare will reduce welfare dependency. 
This thinking was nicely summarized by Rep. Anthony Beilenson, who said plainly, "The truth is, for welfare reform to be successful, it's got to be expensive." 


The proposed new spending on welfare should be viewed as an investment, say its proponents, led by Rep. Thomas Downey. 
They point out that part of the money will go for special education, training and work programs for welfare mothers, to induce them off the rolls and into jobs. 
At the same time they say, certain existing benefits -- mainly Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) -- must be increased to offset real declines since the base year of 1970. 


House members on both sides of the aisle agree that welfare-to-work programs are worthwhile. 
That conclusion was presumably the basis for the bipartisan consensus that was going to produce a serious welfare-reform bill this year. 
But less than a quarter of the $5.2 billion outlay would go for that purpose. 
The bulk of the new money would go to higher AFDC pay-outs, extension of mandatory benefits to two-parent families and maintenance of certain benefits for welfare recipients earning some income. 
In short, the Family Welfare Reform Act amounts to an expanded investment in the status quo. 


Of course, House Democrats could hardly promote this bill as more of the same. 
That might produce reprisals from voters who've watched their tax dollars build and maintain the welfare system, with little evident return on their investment. 
Instead, after nearly 20 years, the system's defenders and funders repeatedly tell the public that the problem, if anything, has gotten worse. 
So the House's liberal majority hoped to achieve an increase in welfare outlays by making a bow to "reform." 


In fact, while the level of AFDC benefits has decreased in real terms since 1970, the total level of all welfare benefits has not. 
Nearly all AFDC families also receive Medicaid coverage, for instance; more than three-quarters receive food stamps, and one-third have children who receive free school meals. 
One-quarter receive housing assistance. 


Together, spending for the seven major welfare programs (those just mentioned plus the Women, Infants and Children program and the Low Income Energy Assistance program) has actually increased since 1970 by 232% in constant dollars, to an annual total $65.7 billion. 
The House Democrats' claim that welfare recipients are worse off than they were in 1970 -- in terms of the level of benefits received -- is dubious. 


Measured in the terms that really count -- namely the number of welfare dependents liberated from the rolls -- the situation has become worse. 
During the unprecedented expansion of the welfare state, the most notable and highly publicized phenomenon has been the development of an entrenched class of long-term welfare dependents. 
It is difficult to accept that the $4.3 billion increase in basic benefits proposed in the Family Welfare Reform Act will do much of anything about the problem of hard-core welfare dependency. 


At the least, welfare reform should have these goals: to shrink rather than enlarge the welfare system, to ultimately eliminate perverse incentives to remain on welfare, and to make work the focus of the system. 


The House bill doesn't do that. 
By adding several welfare programs to what already exists (without eliminating any), the House bill adds another layer to an already complex welfare system. 
By further increasing rather than gradually reducing the level of benefits available to recipients, it makes welfare more, not less, enticing. 
By diluting proposed work-for-welfare requirements, it diminishes the importance of work. 


Earlier this year, there were hopeful signs that we would see sweeping, serious welfare-reform legislation emerge from Congress. 
Democrats and Republicans alike agreed on the need for change. 
This rare opportunity is being squandered. 

