Government must overcome it by providing various new benefits to the dependent, such as guaranteed child and health care. On the other side are conservative welfare experts, such as Charles Murray and Robert Rector, and the Republican staffs of committees in Congress. It is largely by having babies out of wedlock and declining to work that people gain access to aid. Accordingly, the answer is to abolish welfare for the working-aged or at least impose severe work requirements. To do this is only to expect of the poor the self-reliance that America expects of all citizens.
Liberal experts hold almost all academic positions dealing with poverty.
They invite few conservatives to their conferences, and none are named to academic or foundation committees on poverty. On the other side, conservatives control the corridors of power. In Congress, liberal experts and advocates are not invited to testify on welfare, or are dismissed out of hand. At the state level, governors plunge ahead with reforms to drive welfare rolls down, snubbing pleas from universities to study the effects. Liberal think tanks and foundations plan surveys of families to see if harm results, but actual policymakers pay them little heed.