by Eric Martin
In recent weeks, there's been a conservative meme swirling around the ether telling of how the stimulus bill contained a stealth repeal of the Clinton-era welfare reform laws. Naturally, Mickey Kaus was all over it, jumping up and down shouting out I told you so.
On bloggingheads my colleague Bob Wright* routinely ridiculed me as paranoid for worrying that if Democrats got back in power they would unravel welfare reform. Even I thought I was paranoid. If only for political purposes, I figured, Dems would have to wait a few months or years before sabotaging Bill Clinton's major domestic achievement. It took them two weeks.
Actually, no Mickey, you're still paranoid - though you've added a dash of the delusion to spice things up apparently. The slightly wonkier responseto Kaus's premature victory dance:
The economic recovery legislation provides additional resources to states where more poor families need basic assistance due to the recession and the states have responded by serving more families in their TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) programs. TANF is the welfare-reform block grant that the 1996 welfare law established to replace the old welfare system.
Some critics, such as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, have charged that the TANF provisions of the recovery legislation undermine welfare reform. This criticism mischaracterizes the TANF provisions in the legislation. It also ignores a basic reality — poverty and hardship are rising substantially as a result of the recession, and the number of poor children and families in need is increasing. Ron Haskins — the lead House Republican staffer on the 1996 welfare law — has called for the very type of TANF provisions the recovery legislation contains and has said such measures are fully consistent with the 1996 law.
More here. Tim Fernholz provides a distillation:
Essentially, with unemployment rising and the economy tanking, more and more people need to access the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and it's harder and harder for people on welfare to find the jobs they are required to have under welfare-to-work. Under present conditions, the costs of TANF to states are going to increase — the contingency fund could run out this year — and they could be required to put a larger percentage of the recipients in work programs, both of which are increasingly difficult tasks. The stimulus legislation temporarily increased funding for TANF to address the benefits side of the problem, and stops increases in the rate of welfare-to-work participation (but the actual percentages of participants in work-to-welfare remain the same). Basically, the stimulus alleviates the hardship on states so that the TANF program can continue to function when it is most needed, rather than changing its structure in any way. Welfare reform remains intact; whether or not that's a good thing is a whole different discussion…
Oh, Mickey.
*(Full disclosure: I work for and with Bob Wright, and consider him one of my homeys)
It’s difficult to discuss Mickey on OW, since the posting rules forbid discussing his peculiar relationship with caprines.
Robert Rector is a conservative intellectual whore who has made a career of flaking for abstinence-only education and immigration restriction as well as trashing poor women.
Naturally he wants women impoverished by the disappearance of their jobs to suffer — that’s the guy’s stock in trade.
Mickey took his brains out a few years back, cooked them on a stove powered by the hot air provided by Limbaugh, Malkin, Michael Reagan and Hannity and then put them back in once they were really nice and toasty. This explains how he believes that there are always plenty of jobs that pay enough to live on for everyone who wants one.
The Republicans who refuse to take Recovery Money for their states and for their people, are like the “Grinch” who stole Christmas. The Party of No and endless negativity! They fail to see the great good the stimulus will accomplish but rather concentrate and speak on imaginary wrongs and evils, Invoking that old fear god, with portents tales of evil and woe, tales which might never happen. Clearly, a death wish for them.
Actually, no Mickey, you’re still paranoid – though you’ve added a dash of the delusion to spice things up apparently.
Huh?
No, the stimulus bill doesn’t fully unravel welfare reform–after 1996, welfare is no longer an individual “entitlement,” for one thing (a term of art that triggered a whole slew of court-enforced rights). The time limits and work requirements are still at least formally in place. States can still do what they want, in theory, within much broader limits than under the old AFDC program. Many states, with little money to spare, may still refuse to try to expand their caseloads (even if they now have an 80% federal subsidy to do it). A debate on the issue might, in fact, help ensure that states don’t go crazy and recreate the bloated and socially disastrous welfare caseloads of the three decades before 1996.
That at least sounds slightly less than delusional…
Besides, the new administration is all about welfare reform.
Obama campaign ad: he “passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent.”
A blast from the past:
Rahm I. Emanuel, a senior adviser to President Clinton, said today: ”For the first time since 1971, the number of people on welfare is below 10 million. This is a milestone that’s based on the reforms that have altered the welfare system to reflect the priority of work and responsibility.”
Mr. Emanuel, a strong proponent of the 1996 welfare law, said: ”The children of these families whose parents are now working are connected to the mainstream culture, which is built around work. That’s a qualitative difference in their lives that can never be measured.”
Given these previous statements I’d be shocked (shocked I say) if there was any intent to unravel welfare reform. 😉
That at least sounds slightly less than delusional…
Well, good for that. Because days earlier, he was saying something very different. Saying that the stim bill “unraveled welfare reform.”
A walk back is good. The overheated rhetoric that isn’t based in fact? Not so much.
OC,
I admit, I don’t fully understand the economics of it all, but much of the stimulus plan depends on putting money in the hands of people who will definitely spend it. Obviously, the tranche of people who are going to need welfare are the people who are most likely to spend. So complaining about how the stimulus is going to undermine welfare reform is a little like complaining how the Jaws of Life are going to ruin the finish of the car someone is trapped in.
It seems like a weird debate to have at all.
I know it offends everyone’s technocratic sensibilities to admit that some policies are great in normal circumstances but aren’t good in others.
A sampling:
Deficit spending is bad in the normal course of business, but can be absolutely necessary during financial crisis.
Using strict time limits on welfare to reduce dependence can be good during good economic times (when jobs are available) but may not be good during a Depression (when jobs are not available).
Mark to market accounting may be good during normal market periods, but might contribute to a self reinforcing disaster when the market in question becomes illiquid or a fire sale.
Now a perfectly good objection to this is that there will be people in the government who will hype the existence of an abnormal situation even when we are in a normal situation.
This is true. But it isn’t a good argument when pretty much everyone admits that we are in an abnormal situation.
But the flip side is also true. A failure in severely abnormal times is not necessarily indicative of bad policy for normal times. This is true of the welfare reform. Welfare as practiced in the 60s 70s and 80s really did appear to be contributing to creating and holding people in a permanent underclass (this was especially true when the marginal tax rate of getting a job was near 100% when you counted sharply cut benefits instead of phasing out like the EITC). It attempted to correct for a particular problem and it seems to have done so. But in a Depression-like scenario, we want different things. The worry isn’t so much that people will inappropriately use the system, or that the incentives will discourage work, because there isn’t as much work available. So you have to do something else with those problems in mind.
I tend to agree with all that Seb.