Mr. Talent, one of the Republican architects of last year's welfare law, is defending it loudly as the Clinton administration attempts to pick it apart administratively. Conservatives are attempting to defend the reform effort by writing restraints into this year's budget. Mr. Rector thinks Mr. Clinton will win on some points, but Mr. Talent is more optimistic about the outcome, if not the difficulty in achieving it. We're in this position because we have won the philosophical fight. Unions and liberals are the culprits in the dismantling of welfare reform, Mr. Rector says.
Liberals actually believe that welfare is good for people.
Therefore, the more you spend on people, the better off they're going to be. That happens to be a big lie. The longer a family stays on welfare, the less likely the child is to succeed as an adult. Welfare subsidizes divorce and illegitimacy, which are the two single most destructive things that you could do to a child's life. Changing that system is the only thing that we can do to help.