THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510220005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
In the war of words over welfare, numbers are ammunition.
But the numbers used may vary, depending on where you stand on the battlefield. All sides collect statistics that seem to buttress their positions.
Take Sen. John Warner's radio ad that ran in recent weeks, urging support of Republican candidates for the Virginia General Assembly in the Nov. 7 election.
In the ad, the senator asked listeners if they knew that ``America spends more on welfare than national defense, and over one-half of welfare recipients have been getting it for over eight years.''
``Definitely misleading,'' the bipartisan, balanced-budget-advocate Concord Coalition told The Associated Press.
``Absurd,'' added the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
``A lie,'' concluded a spokeswoman for the Virginia Democratic Party.
The main complaint: The source for Warner's ad lumped together under the heading ``welfare'' all manner of programs whose availability depends on income, including Medicaid, the Head Start school program, block grants given to localities for building renovations - even the Earned Income Tax credit, a program favored by many Republicans that offers tax breaks to low-income working families. The figure also included state and local spending, not just federal.
The AP reported that spending on the biggest federal programs ``generally viewed as welfare'' - Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC; food stamps; and Supplemental Security Income, which goes to adults and children with disabilities and children who lose parents to death - adds up to about $88 billion a year.
For its 60-second ad, Warner's Alexandria-based campaign committee, Friends of John Warner, relied on a figure from a December 1993 report by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The report said public-assistance spending - by state and local authorities as well as the federal government - totaled $305 billion in 1992. Ned Monroe, Warner's political director, said $298.35 billion was spent on defense that same year - hence, the conclusion in the ad that welfare costs more than defense.
A check of the latest figures available from the Congressional Budget Office shows that federal spending alone on all income-dependent, public-assistance programs totaled $177 billion in fiscal year 1994, and an estimated $191 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 this year. Defense spending in the same years was $282.4 billion in 1994 and an estimated $269 billion this year.
Medicaid made up the biggest part of the federal public-assistance totals, followed by food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, veterans' pensions, child nutrition, the Earned Income Tax Credit and student loans, according to the CBO.
Warner's campaign staff said it used the larger, more-inclusive figure to illustrate the longtime rise of public-assistance spending.
The disputed content of Warner's ad doesn't surprise Thomas A. Riley of the Statistical Assessment Service in Washington. His organization analyzes the numbers used in public debate, and finds ``twisting'' of statistics at all points along the political spectrum.
Of Warner's ad, he said, ``it's misleading, but not totally inaccurate.''
The same, Riley said, goes for Warner's claim in the same ad about the length of time people spend on welfare - that more than half have been on it for more than eight years.
Statistics for Virginia, where the ad ran, show the average stay on welfare is 2 1/2 years. That corresponds to national figures of two to 2 1/2 years.
Warner's campaign staff relied on a 1994 report from the House Ways and Means Committee. The report contains the results of a 1983 study, updated in 1986, that showed that 65 percent of the people on welfare at a given time have gotten benefits for eight years or longer.
The same study, though, showed that over the course of a year, 30 percent of everyone on welfare has or will receive benefits for just one or two years, 50 percent for less than four years, and only 30 percent for eight or more years, even accounting for multiple spells of going on and off the welfare rolls.
The difference lies in when the measurement is taken: Short-term welfare recipients have less chance of being on the rolls - and therefore of being counted - on any one day than do long-term welfare recipients. Short-timers are more likely to be counted if a study looks at welfare over a period of a year or more.
``Again,'' said Riley of the Statistical Assessment Service, Warner's claim is ``a little misleading, but technically accurate.''
Monroe wouldn't say whether he thought the ad was fair.
``The bottom line on all this, though,'' Monroe said , ``is that the senator supports the Republican position of returning all this spending on welfare programs to the states.''
The radio ads were considered largely an attempt by Warner to get back into the good graces of the Republican Party after his recent high-profile refusal to back party candidates for U.S. senator and state lieutenant governor. Virginia GOP Chairman Patrick McSweeney declined to comment on whether he thought the ads worked.
``He's helping the best he can to elect a majority in the House and Senate, and for that I'm grateful,'' McSweeney said. by CNB