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Editor's Page
So, how to explain the cavalier attitude of the U.S. Congress in passing welfare reform legislation without a clear concern for or understanding of the long-term impact of its actions on the most helpless members of our population - and on the rest of us. Or, the president in signing the legislation into law with the wan justification, "This is the best chance we will have for a long time to complete the work of ending welfare as we know it." Or, the Florida Legislature in anticipating Washington and passing its own version of welfare reform. Or, the governor in signing the legislation into law without adequate underwriting to finance its severe directives.
No one will deny that the 60-year-old federal welfare system was badly in need of an overhaul. But despite years of studying the problem, what was voted out of Congress was recklessly formulated in the service of political expediency. Clinton was not going to give up the welfare reform issue to Bob Dole, acknowledging as he signed the bill that it "has serious flaws." In signing the bill, the White House sent out a signal to Democrats around the country to get behind the president on this. Apparently that clarion call for loyalty was heard in Florida, a pivotal state for the Democrats in the coming presidential race. That was made clear when U.S. Senator Bob Graham quieted his unusually outspoken opposition to the legislation's harsh and thoughtless treatment of legal aliens. Just last April, Florida Trend South Florida Editor David Poppe was in Graham's Washington office while the senator was working the phones trying to build opposition to the legal aliens aspect of welfare reform, which he called "catastrophic."
Chiles got the message, too. He told me shortly after Clinton announced he would sign the bill, "I think the president did the right thing in agreeing to sign it." But he added somewhat cautiously, "All this is predicated on there being jobs for these people."
That's some predicate, considering the vast majority of people on welfare are undereducated and untrained. What company is going to hire them at a livable wage? Congress pretty much left that issue up to the states, which already are financially burdened and notoriously short-term oriented. For example, in its recent session, the Florida Legislature showed its willingness to beat up on the state's most defenseless (non-voting) citizens by sharply reduced funding for programs that help the state's poor children [FT, August 1996].
Florida's welfare reform law was given the uplifting acronym WAGES (Work And Gain Economic Self-sufficiency). Like its federal counterpart, WAGES is predictably vague about where jobs will come from, though it does "provide employer incentives for job creation and retention," according to a press release from the governor's office. That sounds promising - until you give it a closer look. Take, for example, the tax-reduction incentive offered to manufacturing companies for creating jobs under the welfare reform legislation. Associated Industries of Florida (AIF), the state's most powerful business lobby, has long opposed Florida's 7% tax on companies' electric bills, which it argues puts the state's industries at a disadvantage in competing with neighboring states and even in international trade. So the Legislature tied WAGES to tax relief worth an estimated $30 million.
In return, manufacturers simply agreed to try to hire unemployed workers but only "if their business plans allow it and if the person is capable of doing the work," according to Randy Miller, the former director of the Department of Revenue and a consultant to AIF. Miller adds pointedly: "I want to make it plain that there is no law that says we must hire these people. It's encouraged."
Where's the incentive? And what about the multimillion-dollar loss of revenues to our already financially strapped state. Let's suppose, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that this economy can develop jobs for welfare mothers to take within the two-year time limit set by Florida. What are the mothers going to do with their children when they go to work? The state already has a huge backlog of child-care requests by mothers on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, mothers who want to work but who simply can't leave their kids to fend for themselves. What happens when you add to this backlog all the welfare mothers who get jobs within the allotted two years?
Then there's the rosy perception inherent in the legislation that the economy will hum along as it is currently and create plenty of jobs. But what happens when the inevitable recession hits and companies can't even pay the employees they have let alone create new jobs? Will unemployable welfare mothers be forced to abandon their children to the state - whose quality of mercy is most assuredly strained. And what will happen to the relatively modest budgetary savings that Congress has created by slashing benefits to the neediest? Chances are those funds will allow politicians briefly to put off dealing with the real cause of the country's massive budget deficit - tax cuts for the middle class, such as the generous 15% cut proposed by Bob Dole, and the rich list of unfunded entitlements, such as Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits, that have turned this country into a middle class welfare state.
If, as Niebuhr wrote, responsibility gives meaning to life, what does that say about the people we elect to office these days?
