welfare
Return to Common Sense
June 30, 2010
Section:
Domestic – Welfare
“Welfare should be designed to provide a temporary safety
net to help people regain their place in our free market society, and not
provide a permanent dependent “under-class.”
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from
those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Thomas Jefferson
Philosophy
(Background, Issues, Objectives):
Department of Agriculture offers Food Stamps to low
income families.
Department of Health and Human Services oversees
various welfare related programs
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program (cut AFDC caseload in half)
o
In 1996, President Clinton signed the federal
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, often referred
to as the welfare-reform act, and welfare caseloads plummeted by 70%, down to
3.8 million taking 8.8 million people off the rolls.
o
The 2005 Budget Reconciliation Act embraced the
“work-first” philosophy designed simply to get them working, even
in entry-level positions, under the supervision of a caseworker.
- Healthy Marriage
Initiative.
- Fatherhood
Initiative
- Head Start
Welfare system is expensive, over $1 trillion in
2005, and growing.
·
In 2005, $620 billion was spent on more than eighty
welfare programs funded by federal, state, and local
governments.
·
In 2005, Social Security benefits for those in the
poorest fifth of the population totaled $100 billion.
·
In 2005, Medicare provided another $115 billion.
·
In 2005, educating the children of low-income
families cost $105 billion more.
·
In 2005 $40 billion was spent on uncompensated
medical care and $78 billion in private charity.
- Cato Institute estimated ‘value’ of welfare programs
would require jobs that paid $30,000 per year.
- OMB and GAO document widespread fraud in welfare payments that is
costing $45 billion a year.
Poverty is the anchor that binds people
into welfare dependence.
- Only a small portion of the 37 million persons classified as
“poor” are truly destitute.
o
Official poverty measures count
just family's cash income.
o
Official poverty ignores
additional sources of support such as the earned-income tax credit.
o
Official poverty ignores Medicaid, housing
allowances, food stamps and other federal and local government subsidies to the
poor.
- The typical American categorized as “poor” in 2007 has
many amenities formally thought of as luxuries.
o
43% of all poor households own their own home.
o
80% of poor households have air-conditioning.
o
Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded, two
thirds have more than two rooms per person.
o
Typical poor American has more living space than
the average individual living in
o
Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car;
31% own two or more cars.
o
97% of poor households have a color television;
over half have two or more TVs.
o
78% have a VCR or DVD player.
o
62% have cable or satellite TV reception.
o
89% own microwave ovens; more than have a stereo.
o
More than a third have a
automatic dishwasher.
- Rather than materially poor, many of
o A
breakdown in the values, and conduct conducive to healthy families and self
sufficiency.
o Mean
testing benefits are reduced as the non-welfare income rises.
o Welfare
eligibility rules (AFDC) incent fathers to leave the home, undermining basic
values.
- The bottom quintile has a 35% increase in income compared with the
2nd, 3rd, and 4th quintiles.
o Earnings
up, welfare down caused by welfare reform, not government payments.
o Earned
income tax credit accounted for the second biggest increase in income.
- AEI maintains that including all market income reduces 2004 poverty
rate from 12.7% down to 5.4%, demonstrating an incredible reduction in
real poverty in this country.
- Statistically considering all compensation,
private and government, the actual poverty rate should be in the range of
1 to 3 percent.
- The number of Americans on food stamps is rising dramatically, now
approaching 40 million people in 2009.
Principles:
Embrace the ‘Culture of Belonging” encouraging the combination of
“work, wedlock, and worship.”
- Design welfare
to provide for bare necessities.
- Design as
“uncomfortable safety net.”
- Encourage
temporary nature as a stepping stone to rejoining the free market society.
- Discourage permanent
dependence as “under-class.”
Defend and strengthen marriage and the family in
federal and state law and policies.
- Re-write the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as the
union of one man and one woman.
- Ease economic and other burdens on families (remove disincentives).
- Encourage healthy marriages through welfare reform and other social
service programs.
Recommendations:
Short
term, Promote marriage as an institution
and a cure for poverty.
- Expand Healthy Marriage Initiative to increase number of two parent
married families:
o
Conduct
public education campaigns within low-income communities on the importance of
marriage;
o
Provide
marriage education classes to at-risk students in middle and high schools;
o Provide life skills training, relationship building, and marriage education programs to interested young adults who are likely to become single parents.
- Eliminate penalties for married couples under government means
tested welfare programs.
- Encourage a delay in the onset of sexual activity among young
people.
Strengthen work requirements under
the Temporary Assistance to Needy families (TANF) program.
- Restore the original work requirements to TANF.
- Add work requirements (30 hours per week) to other welfare
programs, such as public housing and food stamps.
- Treat a portion of welfare aid as a loan to be repaid by
able-bodied recipients.
- Reform the other welfare programs to dis-incent
participation and incent government independence.
Long
term, Abolish federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development as not covered under enumerated
powers (63 billion annually).
- End federal rental assistance programs
($27.1 billion annually).
- End community development subsidies ($13
billion annually).
- End housing finance subsidies (12 billion
annually).
- End urban renewal and public housing
subsidies ($9 billion annually).
- End
American/Hawaiian programs ($893 million annually).
References:
“The
government’s welfare bureaucracy” by Frank Gillespie dated
“The
rich are getting richer, and so are poor” by Jack Kemp dated
“Rich-poor
divide shows poverty is relative” by Jonah Goldberg dated
“Wedded
to Poverty” by Michael Tanner dated
“Welfare
Reform II” by Stephen Moore dated
“Long
After the Alarm Went Off” by Ellis Cose
dated
“Welfare
Junkies” by Robert J. Samuelson dated
“The
2005 Index of Dependency” by William W. Beach dated
“Ending
Welfare As We Know It” by Myron Magnet dated
“A Plan
to Replace the Welfare State” by Charles Murray dated
“How
Welfare Reform Worked” by Kay S. Hymowitz
dated Spring 2006 published by City Journal at http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_welfare_reform.html .
“The
Collapse of Marriage and the Rise of Welfare Dependence” by Jennifer
A. Marshall, Robert Lerman, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead,
Wade Horn, and Robert Rector dated
“New
welfare rules designed to reduce rolls” by Richard Wolf dated
“Further
Welfare Reform and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005” by Stephen M.
Lilienthal dated
“The
Impact of Welfare Reform” by Robert Rector dated
“The
Amazing Colossal Poorhouse” by Jesse Walker dated
“More
Welfare, More Poverty” by Michael D. Tanner dated
“The
Feminization of Poverty?
There You Go Again, Hillary!” by Carey Roberts dated
“The
2006 Index of Dependency” by William W. Beach dated
“States’
Addiction to Welfare Corrupts Federalist System” by Mike Franc dated
“The
Rise of the Bottom Fifth” by Ron Haskins dated
“Welfare
and the ‘Road to Serfdom’” by Stephen Baskerville dated
“Measuring
Poverty in
“Poor
Politics” by Robert Rector dated
“Slaves
to the Welfare State” by Thomas Brewton dated
“Welfare
State Comes With A Huge Price Tag” by Walter E Williams dated
“What
about the Poor?” by Barry Loberfeld dated
“Poverty
and Welfare in
“One
Trillion-Dollar War” by Edgar K. Browning dated
“The
Poverty of the official Poverty Rate” by Nicholas Eberstadt
dated
“Welfare
Reform, Phase Two” by Steven Malanga dated Winter 2009 published by City Journal at http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_1_welfare-reform.html .
“Obama
to Spend $10.3 Trillion on Welfare: Uncovering the Full Cost of Means-Tested
Welfare or Aid to the Poor” by Robert Rector, Katherine Bradley, and
Rachel Sheffield dated September 16, 2009 published by The Heritage Foundation
at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr0067.cfm .
“Feeding
America for ‘Free’” by Mark Skousen
dated May 20, 2010 published by Human Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37077
.
“Department
of Housing and Urban Development Proposed Spending Cuts” by Chris
Edwards and Tad DeHaven dated May 2010 published by
Downsizing Government at http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/hud/spending-cuts
.
“Confronting
the Unsustainable growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the
Next Steps” by Katherine Bradley and Robert rector dated June 24,
2010 published by The Heritage Foundation at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/Confronting-the-Unsustainable-Growth-of-Welfare-Entitlements-Principles-of-Reform-and-the-Next-Steps
.
