They had a dream - the challenge of welfare reform - includes related article on welfare for illegal aliens - Cover Story

But the Sixties dream of ending poverty in America has turned into a nightmare - chaos in the cities, children without fathers, a huge bill for the rest of us. What hope of reform?

On may 10, ABC television correspondent Brit Hume pointed out on the evening news that President Clinton, in trouble with the voters, was on the road again, in Ohio. The President was shown in an auditorium talking about welfare reform, saying what he has already said many times: welfare as we know it should be ended. The audience duly applauded, as it always does on these occasions. In case we hadn't been following the script, Hume jogged our memories. Talk of welfare reform is calculated to lift Clinton in the polls, he said. Since then, the politically opportune nature of Clinton's interest in welfare has been widely noted.

One might conclude that welfare reform will soon be enacted. Plainly it is popular with the voters. Plainly Clinton knows that it is popular. But the conclusion of this article, to put it at the beginning, is that there is not likely to be any welfare reform in the Clinton Administration; certainly. not the end of welfare as we know it.

Possibly Congress will pass something that might be labeled welfare reform. But it won't be what Clinton has encouraged us to expect: "two years and out." In fact, one can confidently make this prediction: If new welfare legislation does emerge from Congress, it will be one more expansion of the welfare system; perhaps a repeat of 1988, the last time welfare was reformed, under President Reagan.

His support gave that legislation the bipartisan impetus needed to drive it forward to enactment. But with the Democrats now in control, Republicans will be less inclined to suppress their doubts. Reagan turned out to be the social workers' secret weapon. Bob Dole in opposition is less likely to play that role.

The main reason why the law will not be changed in a way that obliges those on welfare to take responsibility for their lives is that the care and maintenance of welfare programs is perhaps the first order of business for liberal activists. The redistribution of income is the cause to which their lives are dedicated (and upon which, in many cases, their jobs depend). Many of them believe that welfare programs should become more generous, not more onerous. Richard P. Nathan, the director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, wrote at the end of 1991 that welfare policy was turning "mean and harsh," imbued with "David Duke's racist spirit." Even as he wrote, welfare rolls were rapidly expanding.

Charles Murray's Heresy

Welfare reform is important because welfare is the central cause of the mounting chaos in the war-zones that used to be our city centers. This is the thesis of Charles Murray's Losing Ground (1984): the rapid expansion of welfare in the 1960s changed the incentives of the poor, making welfare more attractive than entry-level jobs, making unwed motherhood tolerable, making husbands dispensable. This in turn gave rise to the underclass that is progressively ruining urban life. Poverty is not the "root cause" of this underclass. Nor is joblesoness. Nor is racism. Sixty years ago, when poverty and unemployment and racism were far more severe than they are today, the cities remained in good shape. The trouble began at a time of unprecedented prosperity, when eligibility for welfare was exploding.

The defenders of welfare rushed to their typewriters when Murray's heresy was promulgated. How dare he say such things about their Model Cities and their Demonstration Projects, their Pilot Projects and their Housing Projects! The real cause of the continuing distress was the niggardliness of the middle class. Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, came tearing into print in The New Republic. The facts didn't bear Murray out! During the 1970s, benefit levels for Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the basic welfare program, had actually dropped because they weren't adjusted for inflation. On Murray's theory, the welfare rolls should have declined, too. Instead, they remained flat.

But, Murray says today, the erosion of AFDC was pretty much offset by increases in other components of the welfare package-housing, Food Stamps: benefits that for some reason are still not counted in determining the poverty rate. It should also be pointed out that, in 1970, the bad incentives of welfare still had not fury overpowered the good work habits inculcated in earlier generations. Dependency is not something that is acquired overnight. It took a few years for the eligible to realize the government was giving them these benefits with no strings attached - except for the crucial string that, to remain eligible, they would have to continue leading unproductive lives.

Another objection to Murray's thesis was raised by David T. Ellwood, a Harvard professor and the author of Poor Support. He is now assistant secretary of HHS with responsibility for welfare reform. Clinton's rhetoric about a time limit for welfare came from Ellwood, who has since made it clear that he thinks single mothers can be taken off welfare only if an extensive package of benefits remains available to them (child support, Medicaid, day care, and so on). In other words, they can be taken off welfare only if they remain on it.