In my latest reading of No Apology: Believe in America, Mitt
Romney talks about welfare reform. He says that, as governor of
Massachusetts, he proposed to require single parents with children to
work, and the government under his proposal would spend money on job
training and child care. Romney states on page 269: "Because my
proposed program was based on training and child care, it would have
actually cost the state more than simply keeping people on welfare----it
wasn't cost savings we were looking for. We wanted to help save people
from a culture of indolence and an endless cycle of poverty."
On
page 283, Romney criticizes the current welfare system for penalizing
marriage. Essentially, single people with children get more in terms of
food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, and Medicaid. When two
people marry, however, the government looks at their household
income----the combination of what the husband and wife make----and this
"often disqualifies them from benefits" (page 283).
These passages stood out to me because I have wondered: Would certain conservative policies actually spend more
on welfare rather than less? As Romney notes, paying for child care
and job training in addition to welfare is more expensive than just
spending money on welfare. And, if welfare policy is not to penalize
marriage, would that mean that couples would be receiving welfare, even
though their combined level of income makes them ineligible for benefits
under the current Spartan policy? And wouldn't you expect for
conservatives to be rather Spartan in their approach to welfare?
The
hope is probably that work and marriage would set welfare recipients on
a path to getting off of welfare, and that would save the state money
in the long run.