Jon Kyl, November 14, 2002

Now that Republicans have retaken the majority in the Senate, President Bush's agenda will get renewed attention. One issue of major importance that often goes overlooked by the media is continuation of the successful welfare reforms of the 1990's.

As incoming chairman of the Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, I will have a role in examining efforts to further strengthen and improve our welfare system. These measures often come under the rubric of "welfare reform," but really they are a return to what welfare was intended to be: a temporary helping hand to those who need it. The real measure of success with our welfare program is not how many people are on it, but how many people we have been able to help get off of it.

As Franklin Roosevelt recognized, no government program can supplant the pride and dignity that comes from self-sufficiency. As he said, "[t]rue individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence."

Somewhere along the way, our welfare system lost that purpose. It created a cycle of dependence that trapped those it tried to help in poverty and reliance on government programs. This dependence robbed families of the dream of self-sufficiency, which deprived them of the hope for a better life. Too many children grew up in a culture that told them they could not rise from their despair, that society had nothing to offer them, and that they had nothing to lose by striking out or turning away.

Since the expansion of the welfare state under the Great Society, Washington had spent nearly $5 trillion on welfare programs only to find more children than ever trapped in poverty. Children supported by Aid to Dependent Families with Children rose from 3 million in 1965 to 9 million in 1992, an increase of 300 percent, even as the number of children in the United States decreased by 5.5 percent!

In 1994, when Republicans came to power in Congress and innovative governors took office in states throughout the country, they brought with them a new attitude on welfare. The concept was simple: we should expect more from our welfare system. A safety net should always exist for people who need it, particularly mothers struggling alone to raise their children. But the system should also work to free people from it as much as possible, not to encourage unnecessary dependence.

And so, Republicans and Democrats in Congress worked together to enact a series of reforms. They gave states more flexibility to design welfare programs that work best for their own populations. States strengthened work requirements and set time limits for able-bodied adults. And an emphasis was placed on worker training, education, drug addiction counseling, and job placement.

And it worked.

Since Congress enacted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a $16.5 billion annual block grant to states, welfare caseloads declined by 56 percent across the country. The percentage of welfare recipients in the workforce increased by 300 percent. The system demanded accountability, expected performance, and rewarded achievement. In short, it was a sea change, a series of steps that helped people rise from abject poverty.

Working with President Bush, Congress is poised to continue this revolution. We will propose additional reforms to ensure the expansion of opportunity to more impoverished families in our nation. To reward innovation, we will give even greater authority to states to tailor programs to their citizens.

To encourage economic independence, we will continue to have high expectations for welfare recipients to help them move back to the workforce. The President's proposal would strengthen work requirements by increasing the percentage of welfare caseloads that states must have in full-time work programs from 50 to 70 percent. But this requirement will also take into account individual needs for job training, drug treatment programs, and education. We will also provide additional funding for child care block grants to states.

And because too many children become parents before they become adults, and are unprepared for the awesome responsibility of parenting, we will increase funding on abstinence education by 25 percent. Additionally, we will add incentives to encourage marriage because, as studies have shown, a two-parent family home offers children the best chance for success.

These are incredibly important steps. Welfare reform is the best way to rescue people from a lifetime of poverty and dependence. Our new approach restores to recipients the dignity of high expectations, and a helping hand to help them better their lives.

U.S. Senator John Kyl (Republican of Arizona) is a member of the Senate Judiciary, Finance, Energy and Natural Resources, and Intelligence Committees.