Welfare-reform rescue - 1995 welfare reform bill

National Review, April 17, 1995

JUST a few weeks ago conservatives saw the prospect of real welfare reform slipping away, but the House, after a raucous debate, passed a bill that honors the promises of the Contract with America and that, if enacted, will be a moderate first step in the right direction. The bill does not -- despite the hue and cry -- cut aggregate welfare spending, but it does reduce the rate of growth. It also gives greater flexibility to the states, while instituting serious national standards aimed at increasing work and reducing illegitimacy.

What went right? At the last minute, the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee (formerly Education and Labor) toughened work requirements that had been watered down at the behest of governors. As passed in the House, the bill requires states to have 50 per cent of their caseloads working by 2003. And in a departure, states would get credit for moving people off the rolls and into real jobs -- instead of placing them in make-work jobs or self-esteem programs. The committee also strengthened the anti-illegitimacy provision of the reform. The Contract with America would have permanently barred from AFDC any girl who had a baby out of wedlock under the age of 18. As the bill moved along, that provision became only a temporary cut-off until the single mother reached 18 -- an almost meaningless gesture. The final version includes an ``illegitimacy ratio'' that, if cumbersome, at least moves toward stigmatizing out-of-wedlock births; states will get higher block grants as they reduce illegitimate births without a corresponding increase in abortions.

Abortion was one of the larger obstacles to passage of the bill. Behind the scenes, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) sought to kill all elements of the bill intended to reduce illegitimacy, contending that such provisions would encourage young mothers to have abortions. This curious argument put the NRLC alongside some very strange bedfellows -- pro-abortion liberal Democrats -- such as Patricia Schroeder (Colo.) and Pete Stark (Calif.) -- and the Catholic bishops, grateful for an excuse to attack welfare reform. But most pro-life and pro-family groups -- such as the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America -- took the sensible position that the anti-illegitimacy measures were the bill's crucial feature. The Heritage Foundation supported this case with a study showing that those states with higher rates of illegitimacy also have higher rates of abortion. By undermining moral norms the liberal welfare state promotes an increase in both. The NRLC lost this argument, but may still stain the records of pro-life, pro-reform Republicans by ``scoring'' the welfare vote as one against the pro-life cause.

The House bill, which wouldn't have gotten this good without the tireless advocacy of Jim Talent (Mo.), Tim Hutchinson (Ark.), and Jim McCrery (La.), could get still better by giving the states flexibility in how to spend their block grants (and it's preposterous that food stamps weren't included in a block grant). Yet it is likely to get worse in a Senate not yet contemplating reform of this magnitude. The only comfort is that the debate has been moving rightward, and that there's no more propitious ground than welfare for Bob Dole/Phil Gramm gamesmanship.

The Welfare Wars

Accused of starving toddlers

And shouting, ``Bon voyage!''

At Grandma on an ice floe,

While out in the garage

Sis writhes in early labor,

Republicans rammed through

Welfare reform as goo-goos

Sobbed over a prie-dieu.

W. H. VON DREELE