THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 17, 1996 TAG: 9608170007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: By GEORGE F. ALLEN
LENGTH: 91 lines
A glance south across the Potomac will serve as evidence that welfare reform can work if it is based on the philosophy of the work ethic and personal responsibility. For more than a year, Virginia has been successfully implementing the toughest, most principled, far-reaching and pro-family statewide welfare-reform effort in the nation.
With the Congress now delivering welfare reform for a third time, and the president promising, finally, to sign the bill, the gloomy predictions of the liberal naysayers are rampant. But their claims of children starving in the streets are nothing more than the standard fare of defenders of the status quo who have fought for decades to preserve the failed welfare system. In fact, many of the same special-interest groups whining and belly-aching today about the overhaul of the federal welfare system are the same groups that predicted that Virginia's comprehensive welfare-reform measure would never work. But we have proved them pitifully wrong.
Virginia's Welfare to Work program began July 1, 1995. Work requirements are being phased in gradually. Other requirements have already brought substantive change to all 135 of Virginia's counties and cities. All across Virginia, thousands of welfare recipients are already working and successfully making the transition from poverty and dependency to opportunity and self-reliance. It is a success that can now be duplicated nationwide without having to cajole and beg Washington bureaucrats for permission.
The Virginia initiative requires all able-bodied welfare recipients to work, within 90 days, in exchange for the benefits they receive - not wait two years as in the new federal law. We also established a time limit of two years in every five for receiving benefits with a third year of transitional benefits. Under the new federal welfare-reform bill, recipients are cut off permanently after five years of receiving benefits.
Virginia's law goes much further than the federal bill in other areas:
Virginia does not increase the benefits of welfare recipients if they have additional children while receiving taxpayer assistance. The federal law does not address this important reform.
Virginia requires others to name the father of their children if they expect to receive AFDC, or lose 100 percent of their benefits. While the federal law also includes such a requirement, recipients lose only 25 percent of their benefits if they fail to do so.
The Virginia law requires minor parents to live with a parent or guardian and to stay in school, because these children should be in a nurturing environment and get an education for their future.
And Virginia's results are outstanding!
Since implementation, welfare rolls in the commonwealth have plummeted 14 percent statewide, and more than 66 percent of eligible able-bodied recipients now are working for their benefits.
From Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax County to Lynchburg and Bristol, the work requirement has energized recipients across Virginia. In Culpeper, the first locality to phase in the work requirement, 75 percent of eligible recipients are working, more than 70 percent of them in unsubsidized employment. One woman there has worked her way up through three jobs this year, starting as a housekeeper and rising to a $20,000 post as assistant manager of a direct-mail company. Under the old federal program, her benefits would have been reduced dollar for dollar when she took the housekeeper's job. She can now keep about $9,000 of her annual earnings for two years before losing benefits, giving her and her children a head start on self-sufficiency and independence.
We also expect parents, not taxpayers, to raise their children. Identification of the father is not too much for the taxpayers to expect from someone seeking public assistance. And with the threat of revoking professional and driver's licenses for deadbeat parents, nearly $12 million in unpaid child support has been collected, with overall collections up 14 percent over the previous year.
Our program also saves the taxpayers money by helping families avoid the need for long-term welfare assistance by providing a limited cash payment for those in need. The Virginia diversionary assistance program, the first of its kind in the nation, offers a one-time cash payment to workers who face a sudden, large financial obstacle in exchange for foregoing welfare for 160 days. More than 375 families have received about $1,000 each, enabling more than 90 percent of them to avoid welfare entirely.
The bottom line is that our welfare reform works because Virginians are making it work. With the help of the entire community - private businesses, churches and synagogues and nonprofit organizations - we have begun to change the old, failed, initiative-sapping welfare system from one of despair and dependency to one of independence and self-sufficiency. Clearly, the federal welfare-reform legislation will do the same for the entire nation.
While the federal welfare-reform bill is not as strong as Virginia's law, it is, indeed, a positive step in the right direction. For decades, countless Americans have suffered under the old welfare system, children have grown up in poverty and families have been torn apart. For the first time in many decades, Congress showed the courage to wisely ignore the empty howls of the liberals as they cry wolf. And that alone is encouraging news for every hard-working, taxpaying citizen of the United States. MEMO: George Allen is governor of Virginia. by CNB