In 1996, President Clinton fulfilled a campaign promises to “end welfare as we know it” by signing a dramatic overall of the nation’s system of welfare provision, which had promoted dependency and failed to accomplish its goals. The result was a massive decline in welfare dependency. Child poverty declined. Poverty among female-headed households declined. Something like 2 million people left the welfare rolls. Of course there was wailing and gnashing of teeth during the entire transition. People said that the world was coming to an end. Bureaucrats protested. Social workers went nuts. Anti-poverty activists screamed betrayal. But Clinton stuck by his guns. It happened. We survived. And now we thrive, better off than ever.
Now it should be Wall Street’s turn to get off welfare. Bush, however, appears more captive of the investment banking industry than Clinton was of the poverty industry.
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Clinton wasn’t so bad. He did leave us with that $5 trillion surplus, right?
*snicker*
Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.
“We survived. And now we thrive, better off than ever.”
What’s this “we”? That’s collectivist talk. A lot of people did end up permanently worse off. (That’s not an argument for keeping the old system, of course, just for picking real improvement options rather than reaching for this sort of collectivist utilitarian thing that sacrifices some for the sake of the rest.)
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