In Medieval times, medical professionals thought the way to cure diseases was to attach leeches to the patient, drain his or her blood. That was the “cure” for eliminating disease.
Before Jerry Brown became Governor in 1974 (when Californians were sane enough to elect Ronald Reagan Governor), California had the best education system in the country and a transportation system without peer. Housing was affordable, energy and water were plentiful, and California’s total general fund budget was around $9 billion. Today, with a general fund budget around $122 billion, which by the way is a per capita dollar average more than double what it was in 1974, after calculating inflation AND population, housing is unaffordable, electricity and water are subject to massive shortages, our schools are horrible, and our freeways are so overcrowded that, particularly in the Los Angeles and Bay areas, no one can find a time when they can avoid traffic jams. What Jerry Brown did in the 1970’s was to expand welfare and government assistance programs to “aid the poor.” Much like the medieval doctors, Brown attached leeches to state budget, bleeding out revenue for programs that had little or no discernible benefit to taxpayers, under the guise of curing the social “disease” of poverty.
In the 1990s, Governor Wilson pushed through a massive overhaul of the welfare system, which, in those days, led to welfare recipients getting jobs and eliminating the permanent underclass. Wilson removed the leeches, and began the long effort of trying to move people off of welfare and into work, the real cure for poverty.
In the welfare reform of 1996, Congress handed most welfare policy over to the states, which allowed Wilson to implement his changes. The Feds changed the name of the welfare program from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). Congressional reform targeted the three big problems in the former welfare system:
(1) Under the former system, a majority of applicants (70%) would move off of welfare within 3 years of getting on, however, 50% of the welfare recipients were on welfare for 5 years or more. The 30% of the welfare recipients that did not get off welfare in 3 years or less became permanent welfare recipients, and each year, the permanent recipients were growing as a percentage of the total recipients. Congress put a lifetime time limit of 5 years per recipient, to encourage that permanent underclass to get off welfare faster.
(2) Under the former system, recipients had no incentive to find a job. Congress put a work requirement, that is, recipients were supposed to find a “real job” within a specified time period. A “work first,” as opposed to a job training requirement, was supposed to move people to work. One of the lessons of the “job training” policies of the 1980’s (then known as the GAIN, Greater Avenues to Independence, program) was that if job training, as opposed to a job, was allowed, some recipients would simply train and train, and never work, costing an enormous amount of money. Job training was great for bureaucracies, which would have endless training programs paid for by taxpayers, without moving people off welfare and into jobs.
(3) Under the former system, recipients received more money for having more children. Congress imposed a “family benefit.” Essentially, a recipient could increase their benefit for having a second child, but not for three or more.
In 1997, California implemented many of these changes, and the welfare roles began to drop. I actually heard a person I knew say “well, I guess if I have to get a job, I’ll get one.” And he did. However, starting in 1999, under Gray Davis, Democrats started to undermine the reforms. First, by moving back to defining “getting a job” as “participating in job training.” Then, it eliminated the five year termination requirement. Today, to comply with federal law, all the state has to do is eliminate the “adult” benefit, so the “family” continues to get the “child” benefit, just not the adult portion. An adult who doesn’t want to work still gets government money, just not as much, forever. With the newest budget, the Legislature is now eliminating the family benefit, so now recipients will be rewarded for having more children.
Today’s Democrats have returned to the outmoded cure for eliminating poverty. They have reattached the leeches to the state budget. Everything they did wrong in the 1970’s and 1980’s, that led to a welfare system out of control, a permanent underclass, siphoned money out of our education and transportation systems to a class of people who will not work, has now returned. We are bleeding again. At least they didn’t change the name back to AFDC. Thank goodness for small favors.