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August 26, 2006

Happy 10th birthday

There are still liberals here in New York who complain about the 1996 welfare reform, which reduced the welfare ranks from 5M to 2M people, even while the poverty rate has fallen. (Go see them at Teachers' College.) Even in 2000, some intelligent liberals still complained about wefare reform. Now-Governor of Pennsylvania (then a professor at Penn) Ed Rendell complained bitterly with the same garbage liberals said about welfare reform, including how it was a disaster for cities that people should be forced off their duffs and into work.

This week, welfare reform turns 10, and the Wall St. Journal summarizes well:

The late Senator Moynihan is famous for having said that culture, not politics, is the key to changing most human behavior, and that the job of politics is to help nudge the culture in the right direction. Welfare reform worked because it was rooted in that wisdom, and in a basic understanding of human incentives. Support life on the dole, or reward having multiple children without a husband, and any society will develop a culture of dependency. That is where the U.S. was headed under the liberal ethos that compassion means sparing Americans of their individual responsibility to work and provide for their families.

Welfare reform was not a utopian project that promised to radically change human nature. It sought to make Americans more responsible by altering the incentives to remain dependent on the state. If only government were always so modest.

UPDATE: Chris over at Harlem Fur writes:

In response to your last post, which I read out loud to Cheryl, she asked, "where was that written?"

"The Wall Street Journal."

"Oh, that's nice. The people who read the Wall Street Journal are not the ones who need to hear it. They already know."

Meanwhile, Chris writes that Harlem is slouching towards becoming another Paramus, NJ. A Chuck-E-Cheese is opening on 124th St. While I've always been a supporter of redevelopment in Harlem, the neighborhood can't become a dumping ground for every sort of suburban chain restaurant and amusement center that can't afford the rent in Times Square or the Village. I put up with urban blight because I prefer it to suburban blight.

Posted by adrianjo at August 26, 2006 10:37 AM