Congress should require the President’s annual budget to detail current and future aggregate federal means-tested welfare spending. The budget should also provide estimates of state contributions to federal welfare programs.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: In 1935, President Roosevelt (D) said: “Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”
The Failed “War on Poverty”: Since President Johnson (D) launched the “War on Poverty” in 1964, federal means-tested welfare spending has increased exponentially. Today, the U.S. spends 13 times the amount it spent on welfare in the 1960s—or about four times the amount needed to pull every poor family out of poverty. However, welfare programs have failed to address the causes of poverty, and the federal poverty rate remains nearly unchanged.
The First Steps in Welfare Reform: In 1996, Congress reformed the largest cash assistance program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The new law instituted work requirements and renamed the program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. As a result of these changes, welfare roles decreased dramatically, as did child poverty rates.
Rich, the People's Pundit, is the Data Journalism Editor at PPD and Director of the PPD Election Projection Model. He is also the Director of Big Data Poll, and author of "Our Virtuous Republic: The Forgotten Clause in the American Social Contract."