Earlier this month, President Clinton hailed the reforms because the number of AFDC recipients had fallen by half. The White House released figures showing that since January 1993, when Clinton took office, the number of people on welfare rolls has fallen from 14.1 million to 7.3 million nationally, with three-quarters of the drop coming since the measure became law. Some Republicans in Congress have proposed asking states to return some of the money given to them for welfare because of the unexpected decrease in participants. Defenders in Congress, the White House and elsewhere proclaim it a huge success. They note not merely that the rolls are sharply down but that most of the mothers who have left the dole are working.
Critics respond that the program remains untested.
Our instinct is to agree mainly with the critics. We opposed passage of the law and continue to think it was a mistake and a sellout on the part of the president. The notion of pressing welfare recipients to work is right, and plainly has helped move off the rolls some people who didn't need to be there and who otherwise would have stayed. The problem is what happens to people at the other end of the spectrum, who, because of the state of the economy or their own inability, genuinely can't make it. The legislation gratuitously stripped such folk of federal protection they had previously enjoyed, and the president, who could have held out for more on their behalf, instead signed, for political reasons, a bill his own administration had earlier rightly said was insupportable.