Block grants reduce accountability by separating the revenue collector from the spender of the money. As to providing an incentive for recipients to get off welfare, this idea largely is based on the belief that welfare recipients essentially are lazy, looking for a free ride. But the choice to go on welfare more likely is a result of a logical conclusion that welfare pays better than low-wage work. In nine states, welfare pays more than the average first-year salary for a teacher. Ultimately the new welfare bill is based on the unconservative idea that government knows best.
Government programs are far less capable of changing human behavior than simple economic reality.
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in Insight magazine, Sept. 2, 1996. What's been reinvented at FEMA, however, is the idea of federal giveaways as a political tool. The disaster rate multiplied almost overnight. In 1993 Clinton broke Bush's record by declaring 58 disasters. A press release from the agency last February proudly noted that, in the first six weeks of 1996, Clinton had declared 27 disasters.