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Welfare Policy Studies

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• The 2010 Index of Dependence on Government: Dramatic Spike in Dependence Projected

  By William Beach, Patrick Tyrrell, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 06/28/2010
  

  The number of federal aid programs and Americans who rely on government subsidies for their existence is ever-growing. The number of Americans who now pay no taxes has passed 35 percent. The International Monetary Fund predicts financial devastation for the U.S. by 2015 unless drastic cuts are made in the deficit immediately, and Congress has lost control of the national budget. An impending tipping point for the structure of American government and civil society is tangible.

  
  
  

• Confronting the Unsustainable Growth of Welfare Entitlements: Principles of Reform and the Next Steps

  By Kiki Bradley, Robert Rector, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 06/24/2010
  

  The continuing rapid growth of welfare spending is unsustainable. The U.S. can no longer afford the automatic and unlimited growth of welfare entitlements. Once the current recession ends, total federal welfare spending should be returned to pre-recession levels, and future growth should be subject to fixed spending limits. Additionally, careful attention must be paid to the underlying causes of poverty and welfare dependence. In the future, government policy should encourage constructive behaviors leading to self-reliance and prosperity rather than rewarding counterproductive behaviors leading to costly dependence and poverty.

  
  
  

• Welfare Fraud and Abuse in Pennsylvania

  By Elizabeth Stelle, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives
  
  Testimony, 06/16/2010
  

  Welfare advocates justify spending increases by emphasizing that they’re necessary to provide for Pennsylvania’s vulnerable residents, including children, older adults, and the disabled. However, we must consider the efficiency and the outcomes of such programs. If resources are being squandered on those who don’t need them and are defrauding the system, both welfare recipients and taxpayers would benefit from such reforms as replacing Medicaid’s fee-for-service set-up with an exchange that lets recipients shop for coverage and allowing Medicaid credits to be used for premium assistance

  
  
  

• Rethinking Child Support

  By Bryce Christensen, William Duncan, Sutherland Institute
  
  Policy Report, 06/10/2010
  

  Explaining her support for aggressive measures to collect child support, one activist from Utah has declared, “We can – and we must – take the financial reward out of desertions.” Such a view is understandable, even laudable. But is it not also time to take the financial reward out of marital faithlessness?

  
  
  

• Expanding the Failed War on Poverty: Obama’s 2011 Budget Increases Welfare Spending to Historic Levels

  By Katherine Bradley, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 03/22/2010
  

  Congress should ask pointed questions about why the war on poverty continues to escalate more than four decades after it began.

  
  
  

• The 2009 Index of Dependence on Government

  By William W. Beach, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Center for Data Analysis Report, 03/05/2010
  

  Despite the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the 2006 welfare adjustments, 60.8 million Americans remain dependent on the government for their daily housing, food, and health care. In February 2009, the Democrat-controlled Congress and the new Obama Administration may have driven the final stake into the heart of any semblance of fiscal responsibility when they enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—essentially overturning the fiscal foundation of welfare reform. Meantime, the number of taxpayers is shrinking—and the country may be rapidly approaching the point where more than one-third of Americans do not pay taxes for benefits they receive. Add in spiraling academic grants, flat-out farm socialism, and the swelling ranks of Americans who believe themselves entitled to public-sector benefits for which they pay few or no taxes, and Americans must ask themselves whether they are near a tipping point in the nature of their government.

  
  
  

• Making Welfare Work: Reforming Arizona’s Welfare System to Help Families and Save Money

  By Katherine K. Bradley, Goldwater Institute
  
  Policy Brief, 03/04/2010
  

  Like many states, Arizona is grappling with a historic budget shortfall and faces complex decisions about what programs and services to reduce or eliminate. In response to the 2010 budget, the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) made a series of cuts, including $13.5 million in the Cash Assistance welfare program. The state was wise not to cut welfare-to-work programs that are designed to move recipients off the welfare rolls and into self-sufficiency. Arizona should consider additional no-cost policies that would further save the state money and increase the number of people leaving welfare for gainful employment.

  
  
  

• How President Obama’s Budget Will Demolish Welfare Reform

  By Katherine Bradley, Robert Rector, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 02/26/2010
  

  The Obama budget is sending a clear message to members of high-risk communities: “Stay on welfare and don’t get married.”

  
  
  

• Obama’s $250 Bonus Turns Social Security into Welfare

  By David C. John, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 10/20/2009
  

  Since Social Security recipients will get no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) next year, President Obama wants to give each of them $250, a move supported in principle by the Republican House and Senate leadership. However, this move is not only unjustified; it makes a fundamental change to Social Security’s structure and starts the process of converting the program from an earned benefit funded by a worker’s own contributions to a welfare program.

  
  
  

• Why “Faith-Based” Is Here to Stay

  By Lew Daly, Hoover Institution
  
  Policy Review, 10/14/2009
  

  Transformation of a government is a powerful thing, often with dramatic constitutional effects, as any student of American labor law understands. The transformation that occurred over four decades of welfare reform generated further constitutional changes, now in terms of what is permissible under the Establishment Clause. The result is a new church-state order in areas of social need, evolving as the purposes of government and the social mission of religious groups have increasingly converged. That Bush’s departure from the White House brought no wholesale repeal of the faith-based initiative is indicative of these deeper roots.

  
  
  
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