Undoing Clinton's Welfare Reform in the name of Stimulus
Peggy Noonan suggests that we might be becoming a nation of Suleys (octomom) rather than Sullys (the Hudson hero).
Bring some funk
By now you have to have heard about the octomom (Yes, only in America). Well, get ready for more. The stimulus package does away the good work of Clinton-era welfare reform, and will encourage more people to raise 14 kids on the taxpayers' dime. Cato's Michael Tanner writes:
States that succeed in getting people off welfare would lose the opportunity for increased federal funding. And states that make it easier to stay on welfare (by, say, raising the time limit from two years to five) would get rewarded with more taxpayer cash. The bill would even let states with rising welfare rolls still collect their "case-load reduction" bonuses.
In short, the measure will erode all the barriers to long-term welfare dependency that were at the heart of the 1996 reform.
UPDATE: Cato's Michael Cannon weighs in on the octomom story:
The First Peril of Public Charity is that government does a relatively poor job of discouraging such opportunistic behavior. Food stamps, Social Security disability payments, and Medicaid benefits are entitlement programs. So long as Suleman meets the statutory eligibility criteria, she is legally entitled to benefits no matter how much she may be milking the system. It is extremely difficult to tailor government eligibility rules (whether statutory or regulatory) to prevent all the possible forms of abuse.
If somebody is abusing generosity, the appropriate response is not to take away their rights but to take away the generosity. Private charity can do that. Government is ill-equipped to do so, and so our rights come under attack.
