QUESTION: The Clinton administration is revising the nation's welfare rules and supporting an experiment in two Wisconsin counties referred to as "up or out." The experiment limits people in those counties to two-year stints on welfare. Is this how to get people who can work off welfare rolls and onto payrolls?

BETSY HART: Ah, the bittersweet joy at saying "I told you so." Joy that the liberals have come to their senses and admit the "war on poverty" has had disastrous results, but the bitterness at how many millions of broken lives it took to convince them!Well, now that we all agree the system must be changed, let's first look at what causes poverty. It is directly related to whether a family is intact. Sixty-six percent of all children who live with only their mother are in poverty, while only 12 percent of all children living with married parents are in poverty.

The reasons intact families do better, even when earning only one income, are intuitive. It includes greater self-esteem for both parents, a desire and a demand to meet family obligations and more support within the family.

That's where Wisconsin comes in as a model. First, the state zealously pursues deadbeat dads. This helps moms pay the bills but more importantly sends the message that fatherhood means taking responsibility for the children. This may lead to men thinking twice before fathering children out of wedlock.

Second, by requiring welfare recipients to work and allowing them only two years on welfare before cash payments end, incentives are changed. Whereas once the government supplanted the father in a poor woman's life, the father will once again be needed by the family.

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BONNIE ERBE: I agree with my colleague that Wisconsin's is a bold plan, and more power to that state if it works. Taxpayers (including this one) are sick of supporting expensive welfare programs, and yes, even liberals admit that welfare is a failed social experiment.

So what's the solution? Certainly limiting the amount of time someone can stay on welfare is a good start. But that alone won't prevent people from getting into situations bumping them onto the welfare rolls in the first place. It just means we'll see a lot more homeless on the streets.

Even with job training and other social services to help people find work, the administration is ignoring the single most important factor that puts and keeps people - particularly women - on welfare to begin with. At a recent National Displaced Homemakers Network conference, a White House official said an interagency task force is now working up plans to revise welfare. According to an internal government report, the group found 70 percent of women who go on welfare do get off. Of the 70 percent who get off, however, 75 percent get back on.

Women are much more likely to land and stay on welfare if they have children and if they lack a decent education. There's no point in reforming welfare if we don't simultaneously press to actively reverse the rise in out-of-wedlock births and in the dropout rate.

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