"Welfare and welfare reform both assume that the family unit is broken and can't be fixed."
Given President Clinton's cynical disregard for most of his major campaign positions, no one will be surprised if his expressed interest in reforming the welfare system evaporates in the face of expected opposition from the usual ultra-liberal opponents of welfare reform.
However, on this issue he has a very good chance to forge a coalition of Republicans and sensible Democrats who know that most taxpayers, whatever their backgrounds, are sick to death of a costly system that encourages and perpetuates poverty. Both the House Republicans and the Clinton administration support an approach that would limit welfare without work to two years while expanding help for the working poor, including opportunities to develop savings. The aim is to finally correct the perverse incentive structure of the existing system, which seems to enforce idleness and penalize people who work hard and try to save a little of what they earn.
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It has taken too long to get some people, particularly on the Democratic side, to accept that fact that common-sense reforms are urgently needed. It's not clear even now that the Democratic leadership in Congress will give welfare reform top priority, despite the lip service being paid to the need for budgetary restraint.
So it may not be a good time to point out that current proposals for reform don't go far enough. They entirely neglect the damaging impact that the rules and administration of the system have had on family structure. The system discourages marriage. It promotes single-parent, female-headed households. Much evidence indicates that, like a person standing on one leg, such households are inherently more unstable, economically and socially, than two-parent homes. That's at least one reason we all have such admiration for the strength and courage of working poor mothers who manage to sustain a wholesome family environment against the odds.
Current proposals could exacerbate this discrimination against the traditional family structure. They will force poor mothers out of the home and into the work force, despite evidence that children benefit from a stay-at-home parent, especially in the early years. They will do nothing to encourage a responsible male presence in poor families, despite much evidence that the absence of decent male role models contributes greatly to violent and self-destructive behavior, especially among teen-age males.
The core of the welfare system is a program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children. In fact, it should be called Aid to - Mostly Female - Individuals with Dependent Children. Yet unless we do something to make welfare safe for two-parent families, we will end up once again doing more harm than good. Though it's not politically correct to say so, we need a welfare system that encourages men and women to get married and stay married. It's ominously ironic that the only hint of this in current proposals is an effort to improve collection of child support payments. This approach assumes that the family unit is broken and can't be fixed.
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After decades of discriminating against the marriage partnership, we need a welfare system that discriminates in its favor. Instead of paying what amounts to a baby bonus to unwed mothers, we should find ways to provide a marriage bonus to men and women who are willing to take on the rough but vital responsibilities of married life.
Unfortunately, present political proposals merely add a work requirement to the baby bonus policy, and that's not good enough. Poor children need stable homes and intimate role models for the development of their characters and human relationships, particularly relations between the sexes. They won't get this from reforms that at best will result in more working mothers and a greater demand for state-controlled day care.
It's right and necessary to encourage work rather than idleness. But for real welfare reform, we need to do more than fix the economic illogic of the welfare system, we need to work at mending the family structure it has helped to undermine.
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