Welfare: handouts to the lazy, or a helping hand to those facing hard times? The debate continues, even in the face of sweeping welfare reform, which, for all of its sound and fury, has not helped or changed much. What's wrong with welfare and how can we fix it? This is not a simple question, and there is no simple answer. However, one thing remains eminently clear. Welfare desperately needs to change. But where are we now? Are we headed backward or forward? Does anybody even care? To answer these questions, we must catch a glimpse of the world of welfare.

It is not a pretty sight. Welfare is Odessa, a grandmother in her seventies, who digs through other people's trash to find suitable clothes for her grandchildren. Welfare is Mariluz, who lived in a tent with two children below the age of five, because her welfare check would not pay the rent of even the most squalid apartments in North Philadelphia. Welfare is Destiny, a five year old who cried in class, because when asked to recite her address, she realized that because of the numerous evictions she had been through she could not remember it. Welfare is Cheri, who after being cut off of welfare for missing a mee

However, in the four years between Clinton's election and his delivery of his promise, the country, the Congress, and Clinton himself, had changed drastically. Two years earlier, America, fed up with Clinton's inability to come through on his promises, had taken it out on Congressional Democrats. Now both houses were controlled by Republicans. Clinton's approval ratings were dwindling, after nearly four years in office, there was not much that he could take credit for. Not only was a reform like the one that welfare recipients envisioned unlikely to get through congress, it was unlikely to go over well with voter's who, largely thanks to Clinton, seemed disgusted with liberalism in general.

Clinton had to come through on at least one of his major campaign promises. He had to reach he new, middle of the road voters. He had to prove that he could work with the republican controlled congress, especially after two major disputes that resulted in costly government shutdowns. Welfare was a hot topic. It would provide him the opportunity to address all of the complaints about him. It would make him appear less of a liberal in a time when being a liberal was not a good thing. It was his ticket to a second term. True, he was deserting welfare mothers, but welfare mothers were not the most vocal voter group in America, and besides he was also supposed to be helping the working poor, who had become one of the groups most resentful of welfare. So, Clinton said he favored welfare reform.

Eversley, Melanie and Tony Pugh. "12 of 13 Cities Say They Won't Have Enough Jobs to Meet Welfare-To-Work Requirements." Knight Ridder/ Tribune News Service, November 21, 1997.

The answer was not very long. Other than a few minor changes in the early sixties, (Among them were provisions which allowed poor two-parent families too receive aid, and the establishment of the food stamp program) welfare was still the same as it had always been. However what had formerly been viewed as a charity program aimed at supporting helpless females, was now seen as a waste of money aimed at giving able-bodied women an excuse not to work. The new view of the stay at home single mother, coupled with America's increasing diversity, caused great resentment toward welfare programs and their recipients. White middle class America did not like the idea of their tax money going to poor minority women, especially once many of "their" women had full time jobs. A few sensationalized reports of welfare fraud was all it took to convince the middle class that all welfare mothers were lying, cheating, lazy women. Americans who felt overtaxed had a new culprit to blame. Forget th!

In the aftermath of the PRWORA, welfare faces as many problems as it did years ago. There is no universal agreement as to how to approach the welfare problem, because there is no universal agreement as to whether welfare recipients are victims or criminals. Many would like to say that the welfare problem has been solved, that we can now put it in the back of our minds. However, if critics are right about the direction that welfare is headed in, in five years we will have homelessness, crime, and starvation as we have never seen before. Few are heartless enough to be able to put starving children in the back of their minds. So where is the balance between middle America and welfare America? Is it our responsibility to let working Americans take home as much of their money as possible, or is it our responsibility to protect the jobless from destitution? If raising taxes a little bit now could save us a lot later, once welfare recipients became educated, taxpaying citizens, then!

The result of a summer's worth of talk was a bill that revoked sixty years of welfare. It sailed through congress, and was signed by a beaming Clinton, who according to close sources, had been agonizing over the decision to sign it only hours earlier. As Clinton promised, it ended welfare as America knew it. As advisor

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Approximate Word count = 3166
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)