The Nixon Plan
On August 8, 1969, on nationwide television, the President of the United States proposed a sweeping reform, a series of changes which, although more expensive initially than the present program, proposed to treat many of the causes of the welfare mess and take away some of its needlessly degrading factors. He called it the Family Assistance Plan.
No unemployed person would earn more than an employed person — as often happens today.
In short, it would annually provide $500 per adult and $300 per child for all families with children, if that family earns less than $720 per year. If the family earns between $720 and $3,920 annually (figured on a family-of-four basis), it would still receive 50₵ of welfare support for each dollar the family earns (above $720).
An additional incentive to work would be a $30 monthly bonus for those attending job-training programs. A penalty for those who refuse job training and placement would also be instituted.
The President would scrap the entire AFDC program and attempt to employ some of the AFDC mothers by providing day care for the children. Such practices as the "means test" and the personal intrusion by welfare workers would be eliminated. There would be no attempted separation of the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, as is attempted today.
Would the Nixon Plan work?
The President himself said, "I don't know whether it's going to work. All I know is that the system we've got now is a social disaster, and I'm not going another step down that road." Congress counted the cost of the Nixon plan for over a year, then it was turned down recently by the Senate Finance Committee. The reason why is clear when we understand the cost involved.
Would It Work?
As an immediate effect, President Nixon's plan would more than double the welfare rolls, from about 10 million to nearly 25 million Americans. The immediate cost increase would be about $4 billion added to a Fiscal 1971 budget deficit that already is exceeding $10 billion.
The long-range effect would be the most critical. The new welfare plan would officially make the United States a "welfare state." The standard definition of a welfare state would be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. It states that "everyone has the right to social security" and "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family."
The key word is everyone.
At present less than half of America's poor receive welfare. Unemployment and other welfare programs cover only a portion of the nation. Neither the cradle, the grave, nor much of the in between is thoroughly covered — yet.
President Nixon is opposed to most of the principles of "guaranteed income" or "negative income tax." His plan, nevertheless, guarantees $2,400 (including $800 of food stamps) per year to every family of four. The male head-of-family must submit to job training, but women heads-of-family need not.
Would such programs work? Look at the record of past job-training programs.
For eight years now, a program of job training, on both the national and state levels, has been under way. The programs have cost in excess of $6 billion. Critics on both sides agree that only a "small proportion" of the 6.4 million persons in the program were helped. Mr. Nixon called job programs heretofore "a terrible tangle of confusion and waste." Would future job programs do better?
Training programs alone are not the answer. No job training programs can 1) guarantee jobs for those trained, 2) guarantee proper wages and working conditions for victims of job discrimination, 3) instill the desire to learn into a person dulled by years of poverty, malnutrition, or apathy, or 4) solve the primary welfare problem of non-white households headed by women.
Profile of the Poor
Most of the poor are NOT necessarily the lazy employables, but the working or deserted poor. Of the 4.5 million poor families (under the age of 65) eligible to receive some supplement to their income under the proposed Nixon plan, 3.3 million are already working, at wages below $60 per week. Another million families are headed by women or disabled men. Of the remaining 230,000, half are in school or otherwise occupied.
According to the Nixon Plan less than one percent of today's poor would be candidates for job training. The rest are already employed or incapable of work in their present situation, or women who are heads of households.
Job training does not attack the cause — or even the primary effect — of our poverty problem. The main cause of poverty becomes crystal clear when you examine the breakdown — both statistically and literally — of the families presently on the Public Assistance roles in America.
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FATHER ABSENT
Father not married to mother 21.2%
Father deserted 18.4%
Father divorced or legally separated 14.3%
Father deceased 7.7%
Other 4.8%
TOTAL 74.9%
FATHER PRESENT
Incapacitated 17.8%
Unemployed 5.1%
Other 2.2%
TOTAL 25.1%
A PROFILE OF THE POOR — Three fourths of welfare families (on public assistance) are fatherless and on AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children). The typical poor families are rural white (right) and urban non-white (below). Both are trapped in a tragic poverty syndrome.
Wide World Photos
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The true solution to the welfare problem is obvious. Eliminate the root cause of poverty — FAMILY BREAKDOWN — not mere unemployment.
Job training has its part, the elimination of racial and wage discrimination have their parts. Many factors contribute to the involuntary cultural enslavement of poverty.
But the root cause is family breakdown.
What can be done about it?
First of all, we must realize happy families are not bought. No amount of financial incentive can create binding love in the family. In fact, it is not even in the hand of governments to be able to bind families.
Welfare reforms cannot succeed unless they are capable of binding families together. And families cannot succeed without a change in the human heart! With proper character training in the home, the cause of poverty — the cause of second-generation welfare cases — will be solved.
To effect such programs there must be plans. The right type of welfare program is needed to get people back on their feet — to "prime the pump." But what are those programs and where can they be found?
Effective Welfare Programs
A welfare plan that works was proposed long ago. Not many people have heard of it. But it was practiced by an ancient nation.
"If thy brother be waxen poor," said the Law-book of this ancient nation, called Israel, "and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve [strengthen] him" (Leviticus 25:35).
This Law-book also provided special financial support for "the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates" that they "shall eat and be satisfied" (Deuteronomy 14:29). Further statutes and judgments prohibited any form of discrimination.
These laws provided temporary help for those who had become poor through circumstances beyond their control, and also permanent help for those incapable of supporting themselves.
Notice these people were not to be degraded with a pittance or a "dole" barely able to cover their needs. They were to "eat and be satisfied" by a welfare program which opened a "wide hand" to them. Further study of this law reveals a "social security" program for the aliens, orphans, and widows that cost less than 4.3% of the total personal income — not upwards of 10% to 40% which some nations spend today.
What was the secret behind such success?
The secret was the stress on family unity — family support. If any person did not provide for his own relatives and especially those of his immediate family, he was considered worse than an infidel.
Think what a savings to any nation's budget it would be if each family looked after its own members, especially the elderly — their own parents and grandparents! But, more importantly, this kind of system made it possible for the elderly to take care of the grandchildren!
This ancient set of Laws also attacked the root cause of poverty! And that cause results in the enslaving housing patterns we call ghettoes. In the Israel of 3,000 years ago, each head of household owned his own property. That land could not be taken away from him as long as he lived. And where there's land, there's food for those who will work that land.
No property tax took the fruits of his labor on that land. For that matter, there was no sales tax, surtax, excise tax, or any of our other labyrinthine financial siphons. There was a straight income tax (non-graduated, ten percent across the board).
This was no welfare state!
WORK-fare Programs Too
While this system of law provided personalized and loving "relief" to all who needed it, it also made it clear that everyone who was able to WORK was expected to work.
The Book of Proverbs, written by Solomon, a king of ancient Israel, is replete with admonitions to work. Perhaps the most familiar — but least practiced — is "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? . . ." (Prov. 6:6-9)
So a program of workfare — a combination of helping the helpless and providing work for the able — is the proper foundation for welfare systems. But the necessary tools are (1) a strong family unit which would teach (2) a willingness to work.
The welfare programs of any nation can work only if the individuals in that nation are taught to respect these two simple principles.