THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 66 lines
The time has come for the nation to embark on comprehensive welfare reform, but with great trepidation, and with the certain knowledge that the bill President Clinton has agreed to sign is, as he admits, imperfect.
Thankfully, the plan - which demands work for benefits and puts a lifetime limit of five years on their receipt - is not the final word. The Congress will be searching for years to come for the proper balance between demanding individual responsibility and recognizing that some societal forces are more powerful than personal initiative. Unfortunately, finding a balance that fits all cases in all times will never be achieved.
Even so, what seems indisputable is that the open-ended system of government guarantees that has evolved in America over the past six decades is a mess. The causes of illegitimacy are myriad and complex, but among them probably is an awareness that with a baby comes a level of government support.
Moreover, familiar patterns are hard to break, even when they are destructive. It may take proof that there is no free lunch to force some women (and remember, it is largely women and children about whom we are talking) to take the often uncomfortable steps that elevate them into the working class.
Surviving in the lower echelons of that class can be wrenching. But there is a dignity in making one's own way that should not be minimized.
What no one knows for sure is whether linking benefits to work and cutting them off after a few years will produce the desired results - fewer illegitimate births, more women in control of their lives, more intact families.
If the outcome, instead, is the dramatic increase in homelessness, child poverty and crime that some forecast, then the nation will be back to the drawing board in a few years.
The prospect that makes the risk worthwhile is not the billions of dollars in savings that some are projecting, but the hope that this truly is a better way for America's poor.
What the Republican Congress and the Democratic president have argued over is largely the degree to which safeguards should be built in if the reform fails.
The latest legislation takes several valuable steps toward protection:
It would allow hardship exemptions for up to 20 percent of recipients.
It permits noncash vouchers for such items as clothing and medicine for children whose parents' benefits have been cut off.
It eliminates efforts to get food stamp money block granted to the states. Critics feared that the result of the block grants would be Draconian reductions in some states.
The compromise version also eliminates a provision that might have restricted eligibility for the earned-income tax credit, benefiting the working poor.
Those all are positive steps. We question some of the remaining provisions, including harsh restrictions on payments to legal immigrants.
Even so, this bill is an acceptable start, and it reflects a national consensus for change. While many of those promoting the change have no real concept of what it means to be poor in America, some do. They should have a chance to show whether their approach can make a difference.
That said, we need to remind ourselves that it takes little courage to chastize the powerless. It is no accident that the entitlement that Congress has most zealously attacked is directed at the pocketbooks of poor women and children.
A far greater test of congressional mettle would be scrutinizing and limiting middle- and upper-class entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare and so-called corporate welfare. It's not only the poor who've fed at the public trough, and not only they who should bear the burden if the nation now agrees the time for limiting entitlements has arrived. by CNB