Does welfare Benefit Children?
The current debate over welfare reform involves conflicting visions of society and the impact of welfare on human behavior. Real reform will not be achieved until specific core assumptions which form the foundation of the modern welfare state have been overturned and discarded. From its onset, the liberal welfare state has been founded on faulty logic. This flawed logic, embedded in nearly all liberal thinking about welfare, runs something like this: PREMISE #1: Children in families with higher income seem to do better in life. PREMISE #2: welfare can easily raise family income. Conclusion: Therefore, welfare is good for kids. From this logic has sprung a relentless thirty-year effort to raise welfare benefits, expand welfare eligibility, create new welfare programs, and increase welfare spending. The current proposal from Congress to slow down the automatic growth of welfare spending violates these cardinal tenets of the liberal welfare system and thus has led to cries of alarm from t
