Some people never learn: They act as though the main thing wrong with the welfare system is that it doesn't provide its clients with enough money and services.
If only taxpayers were more generous in supplying additional funding, and public officials were more enthusiastic in finding ways to spend the extra dollars, the war on poverty could eventually be won.Sure, any day now.
Of course, others have never believed in such fairy tales. They acknowledge that welfare programs may serve as temporary safety nets for people who are honestly trying to get on their feet. But they also recognize that such programs all too often have the effect of increasing the number of people who become dependent on public assistance.
Consider how the Food Stamp program was expanded to suck in as many people as possible: Between 1970 and 1980, the number of recipients climbed from 4.3 million to 21.1 million. Does anybody seriously believe that poverty quintupled during the 1970s?
Aid to Families with Dependent Children is another case in point. Roughly half those receiving help from AFDC do so for less than four years, and never return.
But a quarter of AFDC recipients stay in the program for more than 10 years. And with the epidemic of illegitimacy and divorce, the AFDC rolls continue to expand: From 1970 to 1980, the number of recipients jumped from 2 million to 3.5 million, and then rose to 4.5 million by 1990.
But AFDC is only one element in the overall system, whose operation can be summed up by this unadorned statistic: In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled. And, in 1980, the percentage of poor Americans was - 13 percent.
There has been no improvement since that period. Continuing to pour money into this kind of welfare system may help alleviate some cases of poverty, but it ends up promoting even more - by encouraging a spirit of dependency and subsidizing irresponsible attitudes and self-destructive behaviors.
Fortunately, even some liberal Democrats - traditional advocates of bigger spending and more extensive programs - have gradually come to the conclusion that free-floating compassion may make them feel good, but it is no substitute for hard-headed thinking and hard-nosed policies.
I will cite only one example of this new attitude: New Jersey's recently enacted Family Development Act, which was promoted by Wayne Bryant, an influential black Democratic state assemblyman, and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jim Florio. Says Bryant:
"(Liberals) believe that poor people should be taken care of by the government, should be immune from the consequences of their decisions, and should not be expected to abide by the principles that working society follows. . . . The current welfare system encourages dependency on the government: It financially rewards the mother for not having the father in the home and for having additional children. We reverse that."
Conservatives have been issuing this sort of message for decades and have been branded as "mean-spirited" for doing so. Now, Bryant and other gutsy liberals seem ready to join in forming a new consensus about welfare.