Small Step, Big Symbol

When the 92nd Congress convened last January, the Nixon Administration sought and got the designation of H.R.I--the number given the first bill introduced in the House of Representatives --for the proposed Family Assistance Plan to reform the welfare system. In the months that followed, as taxpayer resentment of the existing system grew because of ever-mounting welfare costs, H.R.I wound up in legislative limbo, sacrificed to the Administration's new economic policies and old congressional rivalries. But the welfare issue has lost none of its emotional power. Before it adjourned last week, Congress acted: not on H.R.I, but on an obscure Social Security bill; not to pass effective reform, only to make a largely symbolic gesture. The result could well complicate chances for passage of Nixon's far-reaching welfare-reorganization program.

The welfare measure passed last week came in the form of amendments to a bill covering Social Security survivors' benefits. Sponsored by Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge, the amendments say that some recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children funds must register for job training and referral programs. The concept of "workfare" has long been dear to critics anxious to cut welfare chiselers from the relief rolls. It was a prime component of Nixon's reform package. The Talmadge amendments slightly beef up existing regulations requiring job registration for welfare recipients, but in fact they are not so stringent as some provisions of H.R.I. For example, mothers with children under the age of six would be exempt under the Talmadge plan; the Nixon proposals exempt mothers whose children are three or under. Included in earlier Talmadge amendments to a tax bill was an incentive plan for businesses to hire welfare trainees; last week's amendments provide a new funding formula for on-the-job training. The new law will take 18 months to set up and, at that, is expected to increase the number of recipients registered for workfare by no more than 30,000.

Drawing Card. Oddly enough, the chief reservations expressed in Congress came not from Democratic welfare reformers, but from Republicans. Liberals considered the bill such a paper tiger that they did not bother to campaign against it, despite denunciations from welfare groups. Nixon supporters feared that the bill would worsen the odds for passage of H.R. 1. John Byrnes, ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, voted for the bill but lamented that the Talmadge package "contains the stick, but not the carrot." With workfare pre-empted by the Talmadge legislation, the Administration loses its most powerful drawing card for conservative support of family assistance.

Nonetheless, the new bill gave Congressmen the opportunity to point to tangible legislation on welfare before going home to their constituents for the holidays. Unquestionably, a welfare backlash has built across the country during the past year that makes even symbolic legislation important. Some examples:

> Trying to reduce a projected welfare budget deficit of $107 million, Illinois Republican Governor Richard Ogilvie announced a cut in benefits of $71 million. Medicaid will be slashed by $50 million; the remaining cuts will be made in general assistance.

> The New York State legislature reduced welfare benefits by 10% and ordered employable recipients to pick up their checks in person and register for jobs, which state agencies are making available. The state is also setting up two projects that will put welfare mothers to work. Eventually, 25% of all welfare mothers are expected either to hold jobs or to take care of the children of other welfare mothers who are working.

> Denouncing welfare cuts as a "punishment of the poor for being poor, punishment of the sick for being sick, punishment of the old for growing old," Massachusetts Republican Governor Francis Sargent managed to beat back many proposals of the state legislature, such as removing everyone between the ages of 18 and 21 from the relief rolls.

But his welfare commission ordered a comprehensive review of welfare that declared 8,000 of the state's 22,000 welfare recipients employable. They are now receiving job counseling and referrals.

> The Rhode Island general assembly was forced to pass an unpopular personal income tax because of a $16 million state budget deficit. When the legislature learned that much of the deficit was attributable to welfare, it abruptly axed $3.5 million from the appropriation for "supplemental payments" for items like furniture and appliances.

>California Governor Ronald Reagan and the Democratic-controlled state legislature put together a welfare-reform bill that both sides claimed to find satisfactory. While it increased payments for a majority of families on welfare, it also provided for some of the nation's strictest welfare controls. Nearest relatives have been made more responsible for bearing the cost of care for the aged and the indigent; the department of social welfare got authority to scrutinize state income tax returns of recipients. Some of the tight new regulations, however, have been challenged in court.

State and local governments are making an extra effort to uncover welfare cheating, though normally only a small fraction of recipients are involved. Last September, New York City Comptroller Abraham Beame disclosed that 100,000 welfare checks adding up to almost $9,000,000 had been forged over the last five years. Any client who claimed that he lost his check would routinely be issued another by obliging welfare workers, making chiseling a simple matter. When their shoe allotment was cut off in 1968, many recipients simply put it on the other foot, as it were: the bills for orthopedic shoes issued under Medicaid began to rise suspiciously. When they reached an annual cost of $4,000,000 this year, officials tightened the laces to make shoes harder to get.

Louisville authorities have tried to crack down on domestics who collect welfare while working in homes. Because they are paid in cash and no records are kept, they are hard to catch. Their employers are happy to contribute to the ruse. Since the maids are partially subsidized by the government, they settle for low wages. Says Jefferson County Attorney Bruce Million: "The irony is that some of these wealthy people who hire the maids are always griping about how many people are on welfare."

The real trouble with welfare as it now operates is that it serves neither taxpayers nor recipients well. The national cost reached $16.3 billion in fiscal 1971; the social costs of the present system are beyond measure. It will take more than eleventh-hour congressional gestures to reduce that drain on the nation's financial and human resources.

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