Editorial: Welfare changes shortsighted

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

New welfare rules will withhold federal funding from states in which programs fail to limit the amount of time recipients spend in such activities as school or drug counseling.

The new rules, which go into effect in October, are designed to move people off public assistance and into the worforce . Critics say the changes undermine the original intentions of the Welfare Reform Act, a 1996 law that decentralized the federal entitlement program. States now receive a lump sum from the federal government to fund welfare as each state sees fit for its residents.

According to The Washington Post, the new rules - called for by Congress and the Bush administration when the law came up for renewal in 2002 - seek to discourage certain types of activities, such as going to college full time or spending too many hours in treatment for drug addiction or mental illness. The rules strip away much of the flexibility states were promised under the 1996 law and limit recipients' abilities to unravel the underlying problems that may have forced them into poverty in the first place.

In updating the rules, congressional Democrats wanted states to spend more on services such as child care for working parents. Republicans, however, wanted welfare recipients to spend more time at work and less time in education, counseling and other programs.

The GOP won out, increasing the required weekly work hours from 20 to 30, while the Bush administration's Health and Human Services Department narrowed the definition of what counts as work. The result is a program in which welfare recipients are encouraged to take a job - any job - rather than fix the shortcomings that prevented their full-time, gainful employment.

The Republican-backed Bush plan undoubtedly will take more names off welfare rolls, but it will not necessarily result in an increase in skilled workers who will be permanently employable. Those who lack the education to get good jobs - jobs with a livable wage and health benefits - will continue to need Medicaid, food stamps and other publicly funded assistance. Those who don't kick their drug addictions will drift from job to job.

These new rules exacerbate the problems that lead people to welfare. Once again, the Bush administration has shown a complete lack of compassion and a failure to understand the issues that beset the poor.