Liberals are working to turn what is left of “welfare” into a nationwide child-support state, with big government serving as the deadbeat dad when another one cannot be located.
While election-time GOP press releases claim welfare reform a victory, reality proves that Republicans left the most crucial aspects of the war on socialism unmitigated. The bleak election prospects for Republicans this fall, highlighted recently in the Evans-Novak Report, suggest this may well be because Republicans promised many things in the Contract For America that voters wanted but were not delivered.
Deborah Pryce, Chair of the Office of the Republican Conference, claimed welfare reform a tremendous success last week, despite a wide variety of key social indicators moving in the very wrong direction and large sections of the social conservative base disaffected and detached from the party.
Why is welfare reform a failure? Because we took Baghdad, called it a victory, and left without finishing the job. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PROWA) did reduce welfare caseloads, and the work requirement did reduce poverty for poor women by about 20%. But it also caused an explosion of child support cases (which is just another way to entitle illegitimacy and rampant divorce).
In short: marriage is still on the rocks, and federal funding continues to hyper-stimulate everything except marriage. This is quite short of the goals set forth in the Contract For America.
The shortfall is easily visible in social data. The overall birth rate is at a record low, while the proportion of all births to unmarried women increased to 35.8 percent in 2004, the highest ever recorded. More Americans are cohabiting in weak relationships, and fewer are marrying to begin with, a fact that the House Ways and Means Committee interprets as a success. Divorce rates are still very high, at 3.8 per 100,000 population (the small decline in divorce rates parallels declining marriage rates).
Illegitimacy rates have increased substantially since PROWA was passed. Illegitimacy was a mere 4% in the early 1950’s. It exploded with the Great Society, reaching 25% in 1998. In 1999 it rose to 33%, and reached 35% by 2003. There is no question that welfare reform is a failure that continues to strongly stimulate illegitimate births.
This failure becomes self-evident when we look at illegitimacy amongst the poor, which for blacks stands at an astonishing 68%. The low-income sector is where welfare continues to buy-out marriage, widening the broad population of young men who are born without social legitimacy with little chance of establishing it on their own. The hyperactivity of welfare entitlements thus leaves poor families weaker and poorer than they would otherwise be, in a morass of uncivil men and women unable to pull their own communities up by the bootstraps.
In Losing Ground, Charles Murray thoroughly proved the theorem that welfare drives illegitimacy (which has been fairly well known since the days of Daniel Patrick Moynihan). But Liberal conservatives (who are inured to feminist policy) squarely rejected Murray by arguing that if he was right, welfare reform would have caused a decline in illegitimacy. According to the Manhattan Institute:
But one key implication of Murray’s argument proved false. If welfare really were an “incentive” for women to have out-of-wedlock babies, welfare reform should have produced a decline in illegitimacy. It didn’t, however: Almost 70 percent of black children continue to be born out of wedlock.
My argument proves precisely the single major element Murray did not point out: Welfare reform would have been successful had we stopped entitling illegitimacy. I spent the past twelve years warning Republicans that the welfare state has been a “child support” state since 1968 and that PROWA only made this worse. It is now the task of the radical middle to make Republicans deal with this ongoing disaster whether they want to or not.
Federal reports do not reflect the fact that poverty is a greater problem than ever for poor men because we placed the burden of the welfare state on them and criminalized their poverty if they cannot pay an arbitrary amount of “child support” that some bureaucrat decided they must pay. There are few poor men who can support two households, much less one. Yet, this is what the current federal model demands.
In the final analysis, we cannot call welfare reformed until marriage is restored as the social norm, in both poor and middle class families. The bulk of the problems are yet to be addressed, as evidenced by many astonishing facts:
• The United States has the highest incarceration rate of the 205 independent countries of the world.
• My research, learned from confidential sources, suggests that up to 40% of prisoners in county jails may be so-called “dead beat” dads. Many of these are poor black men brought up in a welfare culture that still has no use for men in marriage or family.
• A poor man incarcerated for failure to pay a demanded sum of cash each month that is not connected to real earnings gets farther behind on support, will be cyclically re-incarcerated, and is unlikely to ever be able to re-enter society.
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) restrictions are being loopholed by illegal immigrants who receive “welfare” for “child-only” cases without working. Liberals are working to turn what is left of “welfare” into a nationwide child-support state, with big government serving as the deadbeat dad when another one cannot be located. In divorce, child support is a “right of the child.” Radicals desperaty wish to restore welfare as an unconditional right, by recasting it as child support, in addition to attacking time and other limitations.
• Presently only 1% of TANF is used to promote child well-being and healthy marriages, via weak “education” programs that accomplish nothing. Education is not the problem – federal policy is. If we could trust drug dealers to run the ATF, we could also trust the welfare system to promote marriage. Policies to restore marriage must necessarily be enacted and operated from outside the welfare bureaucracy.
From a 2000-foot view, here is the status of welfare reform:
• Phase 1, requiring single mothers to work, is largely accomplished. While this has ameliorated poverty for women, it has had the reverse effect for poor men, and left about 40% of America’s children living outside a married family, and at high risk for a pandora’s box of serious social and developmental problems that government cannot directly repair.
• Perverse incentives to have children out of wedlock remain fully functional. Most modern effective birth-control methods are invisible and used by women. Entitlements substantially change the calculus of out-of-wedlock childbearing, and undermine marriage. Whether we call it welfare or child support, the entitlement of irresponsible childbearing has devastated the lower classes and has moved into the middle class. This is driving continued family fragmentation and causing widespread discrimination against men in family and society in the supposed interest of collecting child support.
• The increasing number of children raised outside marriage continue pay the price. They are under-parented, poorly supervised, and far more likely to become involved in crime, gang violence, suicide, drugs, truancy, and intergenerational illegitimacy. Boys in particular have no male role models and fail in schools which expect boys to behave like little girls.
To complete welfare reform, Republicans must enact the following styles of legislation, all of which will strengthen marriage and extricate government from anti-family entitlement programs. Federal funding currently drives many abuses of adults and children, which can only be ended with sensible, clear directives limiting what funds may be used for.
• Reform the Violence Against Women Act, to be replaced with a gender-neutral program with evidence-based standards, penalties for making false allegations, and elements to help a responsible spouse get a chemical-abusing spouse into treatment. Service providers must be required to help individuals regardless of sex in order to qualify for federal funding.
• Establish child support caps which states cannot exceed, expressed as a percentage of actual monthly income of the non-custodial parent. Revise laws to require state courts to correct past orders where support orders have exceeded actual income of the non-custodial parent, and to forgive amounts in excess of federal caps.
• Penalize states that do not require shared-parenting custody orders, such as the Time-Shift Shared Parenting model.
• Require states to recognize federal parental rights of the non-custodial parent. When children are removed from a single-parent family household, states must notify the other parent, and that parent must have first right of custody unless that parent is either unfit or waives custody.
• Require a positive DNA test before child support may be ordered, and require states to terminate support orders when a DNA test is negative, regardless of marital status of the parents.
To rebuild a political base for 2008, Republicans must acknowledge that it is the social conservative grassroots base that repeatedly put them in office since 1992. Without finishing welfare reform, Republicans should know there is no chance of winning in 2008. Perhaps the lessons that will be learned in the 2006 election cycle will help Republicans re-commit to finishing crucial welfare reforms still begging for attention.
‘Nuf said.
In “Is Welfare Reform Really a Success?”, David Usher defines success of the Contract With America using two fixed and narrow criteria of “has it reduced out-of-wedlock pregnancies” and “has it increased the marriage-rate and lowered the divorce-rate”. He calls these criteria “the most crucial aspects of the war on socialism”.
Really, these are but one criterion when you look at the underlying message of what Usher considers “crucial”. That criterion is ‘family’. More and longer marriages and legitimacy are both values we assign as ‘family’, and to us they are important. However, not everyone (not even all conservatives) will agree this is a critical measure of success. Therefore, we need to ask: Is this the only criterion by which to judge the CWA?
To do that, we have to go back to CWA itself, see what it proposed, how much of it was implemented and for how long, what changes (including unintended) have been caused by it, and are the changes positive.
If Usher’s criterion is not critical to its success but is still important, how much of a ‘failure’ is the CWA without it? What are the criteria by which other conservatives, libertarians, independents, and even liberals might measure CWA success? Why are those important and why should we care? They are important because CWA was not intended as a pay-off to the conservative base or even a particular category of conservatives. It was a meant to answer demands made by a broad cross-section of post-Carter-Era Americans frustrated with both political parties, only one of which rose to the occasion. Finally, it was intended by Republicans as a device for swinging support away from the Democrats and the liberal agenda, and energizing conservatism. In short, it was a political device; and, therefore, its success must also be measured in terms of these purely political objectives.
The CWA contemplated eight reforms applicable to Congress directly that have no effect beyond cleaning house, increasing accountability, and curbing run-away government:
• require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress
• select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse
• cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third
• limit the terms of all committee chairs
• ban the casting of proxy votes in committee
• require committee meetings to be open to the public
• require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase
• implement a zero base-line budgeting process for the annual Federal Budget
These measures were included because they represented the strongest and commonest of complaints made by an electorate incensed by a government that seemed out of control. My personal assessment is they made some excellent temporary improvements, but not enough of them have been maintained as they ought.
It next proposed and pushed the following specific bills:
• a balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and legislative line-item veto (temporary success: now defunct)
• an anti-crime package (indeterminate: too many variables)
• a welfare reform bill to discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy (indeterminate)
• a family reinforcement bill to:
a) protect parents’ rights to supervise children’s participation in federally funded programs and shield them from intrusive surveys (indeterminate: not properly implemented, no measurable change)
b) require states to give “full faith and credit” to child support orders issued by courts or administrative procedures of other states (unintended ‘deadbeat-dad’ effect destructive of family, no measurable improvement in support)
c) $5,000 refundable tax credit for families adopting a child (indeterminate, people don’t adopt kids for money, they just don’t like being penalized for it)
d) strengthen penalties for child pornography and criminal sexual conduct involving minors (no change: doesn’t curb dysfunctional behaviors because narcissistic culture and left’s agenda still favor)
e) $500 tax credit for families caring for a dependent elderly parent or grandparent (no significant societal change, insufficient to influence people on how to care for an elderly parent)
• American Dream Restoration Act (ADRA)
a) provides a tax credit for families (promote family) (no change, people don’t have kids for money, they just don’t like being penalized for it)
b) reforms the so-called “marriage penalty” (promote marriage) (no change, most people don’t marry for money, they just don’t like being penalized for it)
c) improved Individual Retirement Account (stimulate savings) (large improvement, people have been encouraged to save)
• National Security Restoration Act
a) ensure U.S. troops deployed only for national security missions (significant change: affected how we acted in Bosnia and Sudan – defunct post-9/11)
b) reinvigorate national missile defense and accelerate expansion of NATO (mixed results: restored national confidence in leadership, low confidence in NATO impartiality undermines NATO’s role in US interests)
c) restore readiness of military caused by excessive cuts in defense spending (major change, turned military around and restored national confidence, augmented confidence of military in conservatives)
• Senior Citizens’ Equity Act: removes financial burdens on senior citizens
a) allow earn more income without losing Social Security benefits (some improvement: retirees still double-taxed on benefits, though not as much)
b) reduce percentage of Social Security benefits on which they must pay taxes to level before increased in 1993 (Clinton) (poorly enacted: retirees still double-taxed on benefits)
As you can see, from these lists, far more was at stake than Mr. Usher’s lone criteria for success. We can also see that, although much has not gone as planned, some has. Most of the legislation that was promised was, in fact, enacted. That means, regardless of downstream outcomes, Congress kept 7/8ths of its promise. They could not promise results, only means. They put on the books those measures we demanded of them and which satisfied us at the time. They too were part of that discussion, to be sure, but for once it wasn’t a one-sided discussion limited to insular unrepresentative representatives. However, that means we must share in the failure as co-authors, and cannot recriminate with Congress over the results.
Objectives of the CWA included such things as: shrinking the size of government, promoting lower taxes, promoting greater entrepreneurial activity, limiting tort litigation and damages, welfare reform, increasing personal responsibility, reducing crime, fairness to seniors, national debt reduction; all of which are conservative or libertarian objectives in their own right, irrespective of stated objectives in the CWA. To the degree they have been effected (regardless of social fallout), we can say they are conservative and/or libertarian successes. On the negative side of the ledger: government has not shrunk since Reagan, crime has not been reduced, and the national debt continues to grow. On the positive side, taxes have been lowered and streamlined, enterprise appears to be doing well, personal responsibility is up (except in Congress where it about the same), and seniors are a little better off (for the time being). Tort legislation is DOA, and would depend on your tort position in any case. The results are mixed, but they are accompanied by a new attitude of confidence in America; of which the Contract is firmly a part.
Each of us will be guided in his/her judgment of the CWA by what drives our individual conservatism, liberalism or libertarianism. Some are social conservatives while others are fiscal conservatives, hawkish post-9/11 conservatives, globalist-real-politic conservatives (aka, Bush), isolationists, or Constitutional purists. Liberals, socialists, independents, and libertarians can be similarly classed according to emphasis. Your appraisal of CWA may hang on whether you are/were more attracted by its objectives or means (e.g., against high taxes because they are wrong or drawn to the CWA’s capacity for social-engineering). Thus, few of us will fix on the same objective or give each objective the same weight. This makes any appraisal subjective.
Usher’s article (whether intended or not) advocates a form of social-engineering (reverse S-E). He is disappointed the CWA has not broken the logjam of unwed mothers, illegitimate children, and broken families; and restored America to a family orientation. Welfare, abortion, and the pill, are critical factors in the creation of the current pattern through their corrosive effect on social values. The man who accepts welfare must make it ‘his due’ or else his spirit is crushed by his inadequacy to provide, the young woman who takes pills to have sex with her lover stigmatizes virginity as outdated rather than feel cheap, and the child-woman who chooses abortion over responsibility must regard her fetus no more human than a gnat to survive unquenchable guilt. Welfare was also social-engineering, but it cannot be so much said to have ‘engineered’ these problems (or the ways we survive them) as enabled them through unthinking idealism.
Logic seemed to dictate: if welfare, abortion, and the pill created this situation, then revoking them ought to restore our culture to its former state. The reality is not that simple. The liberal agendas of the 60’s, 70’s and 90’s, together with the broken-family pattern, have created a dynamic that policy reversal alone is insufficient to correct. Thirty years of liberal meddling, muddling, and narcissism does not vanish just because we’ve starved it of some of its fertilizer. The new pattern is ingrained in our culture as ‘the norm’ and retains a huge acceptance among those accustomed to easy and self-justifying answers, and will take more than one decade to repair. It has effectively destroyed that social-value-judgment upon which marriage-&-family-are-sacred rests. The restoration, therefore, cannot be complete until the left’s programs are fully curtailed and the ideas of family, marriage, chastity, and virtue have had as much time to re-infuse as it took to the left to destroy. Realistically, we may never see a full restoration of cultural health. The left is still with us, and determined to retain its hold. Closing Pandora’s Box is always far harder than opening it.
I do believe, though, that our young people are taking stock of the disservice my generation has done them, and are on the right track for turning things around. They are rejecting much the 60’s Kool-Aid culture and demanding something more grounded. Many see themselves as victims of the drugs/pill/abortion/welfare merry-go-round, and want no part in perpetuating it. Some are disciples of Reagan and pupils of Gingrich, and see the Contract as no more than an important step. These are the probable leaders of their generation with some idea of a future worth having. To be sure, many others are still lured by the easy answers of the left, but those numbers have shrunk. This generation is, only now, moving out of the cradle and into adult life. Soon they will be taking over the reigns and will put their own stamp on society and politics. That to me is a better measure of the success of the Reagan Revolution, the CWA, and all that has followed. Mr. Usher is impatient to see the result, but I think he is looking in the wrong place. He expects people conditioned to liberalism’s overwrought maxims to change. Radicalism took two generations to work its changes. Usher expects conservatism to work a miracle in less than half a generation, is frustrated that it hasn’t. We need a little patience, perseverance, and faith: patience that these things take time, perseverance in pushing our program and weeding out leftist excesses, and faith in our children that they, not we, will be the result.