Welfare War Essay, Research Paper

The United States of America… the land of the free and the home of the

tax-stricken. The country that is known as ?the last superpower in the

world? that developed the deadliest weapon on earth, sent the first person to

the moon, and was the birthplace of the most powerful man in the world, Bill

Gates, has forty million people (which include ten million children) without

basic healthcare coverage. (Packet, pg.58) Although this ?supernation?

boasts of the ?American dream,? where the poor become rich overnight, the

typical American citizen does not have a ?super? lifestyle. Based on the

average income of Americans, ?one in every five U.S. nonelderly households are

poor, one in four young households are poor, and over half of all households

headed be a lone parent are poor.? (Packet, pg.1) Though the United States has

tried to mimic the welfare systems of that of Europe, the bureaucratic ?red

tape? and the conflicts that reside between the legislature and executive

branches of the government have hindered the progress towards an effective

welfare reform policy. In order to understand the progressions towards refining

the wounded welfare system of the United States, one must first know what

welfare means. The welfare state is ?a state which takes the prime role in

ensuring the provision of a minimum standard of living for citizens.?

(Professor VonDoepp) The two goals of the welfare state is that of 1. security

against socio-economic deprivation (especially with the current Capitalistic

system which families base their entire lifestyle on the outcome of the economy)

Broye 2 2. equality against the still present racial tension and economical

barriers that reside in society. Many critics of welfare programs across the

world have argued whether the U.S. is really a welfare state because of the

limited role played by the government to maintain a minimum standard of living.

In Europe?s case, just the opposite can be said for their welfare programs.

European states such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom

?provide higher minimum standards of income support than are available in the

U.S.? (Packet, pg.1) Only seven percent of households in Western Europe have

incomes that are below the national median, compared to the United States where

the poverty percentile is double. The only positive aspect that the U.S. has to

show for their efforts in the current welfare system is the provision of free

public education, which is higher than in Europe. (Packet, pg.16) In the U.S.

the welfare system before the 1996 bipartisan revision, had far more gaping

holes in the ?social safety net? than that of the European states. Many

skeptics believe that the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill will cause even more harm to

the citizens of the U.S. Peter Edelmaun, the former assistant secretary for

planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned

after having worked over 30 years after he read the reformation that was to take

place from the Welfare Reform Bill. ?The bill will move 20 million people,

including 1.1 million children, into poverty, and forcing 11 million families

(10 percent of all American family households) under the poverty line which was

last estimated at $13,793 for a family of three. (Atlantic Monthly & Packet,

pg. 46) While many European states including Sweden, Germany, the United

Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands provide healthcare Broye 3 centers,

suitable housing, health/recreational spas, and regulate wage differentials and

offering generous social assistance to the jobless, the United States recently

passed a bill to narrow the eligibility for disabled children which will result

in the removal of 100,000 to 200,000 of the children who currently receive SSI.

Senator Edward Kennedy, who voted against the bill, described it best by saying

it was ?legislative child abuse.? (Atlantic Monthly) Even though the world

sees that the United States needs to broaden their ?safety net? for its

citizens, political strife continues to shorten welfare?s reach to those who

are in need. The most serious cut to arise from the political blood bath to

create the Welfare Reform Bill is the limiting of food stamps to three months

out of every three years for unemployed adults under the age of fifty who do not

care for any siblings. (Atlantic Monthly) Instead of cutting down the cow (the

food provided by the government), why not cut the cash cow that many of our

legislative and executive officials enjoy having on a regular basis? The news

gets better for welfare recipients. There is now a five year cap on welfare aid

to all recipients, a cap of $16.4 billion annually for funding, with no new

funding for jobs and work training, and the states have been given absolute

power of decree to do as they wish with their appointed sums of welfare revenue.

Was it not the goal of the welfare system to prevent an uprising in case of

economic turmoil and instill peace-of-mind that there would be preventive

measures in place in the instance of an unforeseen tragedy? In the case of the

new reform bill passed by Congress and the President, welfare will most likely

cause upheaval instead of preventing it. If this were Broye 4 so, then the

United States must ask whether malnutrition, abuse against children, and deeper

poverty among its citizens is in the best interest for the sake of ?reform.?

In 1871, Otto von Bismark created the first social welfare insurance known to

the world to help prevent cultural uprisings in Germany. One reason for our

present-day welfare systems that span around the world is in part to the

socialist labor movement, which grew only as a reaction to aristocratic power.

(Packet, pg.17) Industrialization was at the threshold of a new century, and

socialistic ideals began to manifest themselves into the values of Europe?s

citizens. The threat of a capitalistic resistance towards socialization bringing

disastrous economical effects and interest in regulation of industry instead of

ownership, led to the progression of the current welfare state system. (Packet,

pg. 12) One speculation as to why welfare programs have done well in European

states, unlike that of the U.S., is because of the ?royal absolutism.?

European bureaucracies had long been seen as a legitimate power in governmental

rule, so no one opposed the reformation to a welfare system when endorsed by the

aristocrats. ?The general principles of the welfare state are as universally

accepted and politically invulnerable in Europe as social security is to the

elderly.? (Packet, pg.17) Besides the uniquely different histories that

brought Europe and the United States to develop social-economic welfare

programs, the relative size in population per state is a determining factor

stated by one hypothesis. The higher neglect of the American welfare system

could be traced to the spatial obstacles readily visible in the U.S. Many

political and social theorists refute this theory on the basis, and not to be

taken out of context, that ?size doesn?t matter.? In fact, many theorists

believe that because the U.S. is so tightly- Broye 5 knitted in respect to

people per square mile (an average of 55 people per square mile), they should be

able to procure a feasible way of handling the dilemma concerning welfare

reform. (Packet, pg.2) The closer you are to a community, the more likelihood of

sharing similar interests and goals. Another explanation for America?s welfare

woes is that of appeasement. America has been respectively given the name

?melting pot? for the diverse population it holds within its borders.

European states do not have to contend to the desires of a largely diverse

population as greatly because most citizens of Europe have heavy ties to their

homeland and do not often part from their birthplace. In order to appease the

majority of the population in America, compromises must be reached.

Unfortunatley, compromise can (and often does) lead to the exclusion of

necessary elements to create a sound reform or economical benefit to the

country?s welfare. The crucial component that could greatly benefit the United

States welfare program is what Europe learned long ago: cooperation,

consideration, and the belief that no one must be denied the right for the basic

needs to sustain life as we know it.

Peter Edelmaun, ?The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done,? Atlantic

Monthly, March 1996. Robert Heilbroner, ?Benign Neglect in the United

States,? in Transaction, October 1970, Vol.7 #12. (Packet) John Kautsky,

?Contexts of Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism,? in Society, March

April 1996, Vol. 33#3. (Packet) Katherine McFate, ?First World Poverty,? in

Focus, November 1991, Vol. 19#11. (Packet) ?Mr. Blair Goes to Washington,?

in The Economist Volume 346, Feb. 7, 1998 pp. 15-16. (Packet)