This Week's Suggested Book
from the Ashbrook Center
(Monday, January 22, 2001)
 | | Ending Welfare As We Know It
by R. Kent Weaver |
Brookings Institute
352 pages, January 2000
Hardcover, 19.95
ISBN: 0815792476
A percentage of the proceeds from your purchase of this book from Amazon.com will benefit the
Ashbrook Center.
In 1996, the sixty-year old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was replaced by a new, and dramatically different, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. President Clinton had promised in his 1992 presidential campaign to "end welfare as we know it," but the legislation he signed in 1996 was far closer to positions favored by congressional Republicans. It was one of the few major domestic policy initiatives of the new Republican congressional majority to make it into law--a marked contrast to the failures of a long list of welfare reform initiatives dating back to President Nixon's Family Assistance Plan of 1969.
How did this extraordinary legislative change come about? In this definitive political history of the 1996 welfare reform legislation, R. Kent Weaver argues that broad contextual factors-such as public opinion, policy research on poverty and welfare, and interest group pressures-contributed to the new welfare law, but did not make it inevitable. Both broad strategic choices and short-term calculations made in the political competition between President Clinton and congressional Republicans played critical roles in driving the debate over welfare in a more conservative direction and in producing a legislative agreement. They reflect, Weaver contends, a broader process of "relational bargaining" that is a central feature of American policymaking.
- Table of Contents
Chapter 1
- Introduction: Welfare Reform as a Political and Policy Problem 1
Chapter 2
- Welfare as We Knew It 9
- Poverty and American Families 10
- The Structure of American Family Support Policies 11
Chapter 3
- Explaining Welfare Politics: Context, Choices, Traps 23
- Contextual Forces in Welfare Reform Politics 24
- Analyzing Political Choice 29
- Policymaking Traps in Reforming Welfare 43
- Stasis and Change in Welfare Policy 52
Chapter 4
- The Past as Prologue 54
- Growing Controversy over AFDC 5
- Nixon's Family Assistance Plan 57
- Carter Tries Again 60
- The Budget Blitzkrieg of 1981 66
- Reagan's New Federalism 68
- The Family Support Act of 1988 70
- Policy Counterpoint: Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit 78
- Patterns and Lessons in Welfare Reform 84
- Avoiding the Welfare Reform Policymaking Traps 91
- Conclusions 100
Chapter 5
- Welfare Reform Agendas in the 1990s 102
- Getting Politicians' Attention: The Problem Stream 103
- Welfare Reform Options: The Policy Stream 106
- Raising the Stakes: The Political Stream 126
- Conclusions 133
Chapter 6
- The Role of Policy Research 135
- The Boom in Policy Research 140
- Uses and Limitations of Policy Research 143
- Issues Surrounding Program Entry 145
- From Program Exit to Self-Sufficiency 153
- Conclusions: Policy Research and the Politics of Dissensus 160
Chapter 7
- Public Opinion on Welfare Reform 169
- Public Opinion and Policy Change 169
- The Importance of Elite Priming 171
- Analyzing Opinion on Welfare 172
- Causes of Poverty and Welfare Dependence 175
- Attitudes toward Specific Reforms 177
- Whom Do You Trust? 186
- Conclusions and Implications 190
Chapter 8
- Interest Groups and Welfare Reform 196
- Child Advocacy Groups 199
- The Democratic Leadership Council 206
- Intergovernmental Groups 207
- Social Conservative Groups 211
- Conclusions: The Ambiguous Impact of Groups 217
Chapter 9
- Not Ending Welfare as We Know It: The Clinton Administration's Welfare Reform Initiative 222
- The Political Environment for Welfare Reform 223
- A Crowded Agenda 228
- Policy Choice and the Politics of Formulation 232
- Coming to Closure 237
- The Clinton Administration Proposal 242
- The Political Feasibility of the Clinton Plan 246
- Conclusions 248
Chapter 10
- A New Congress, a New Dynamic 252
- The Electoral Earthquake 253
- Initial Bids 260
- Evolving Bids: Seeking a Workable Compromise in the House 274
- Explaining the Republican Success in the House 289
Chapter 11
- Stop and Go in the Senate 294
- Setting the Stage in the Senate 295
- Stop and Go 301
- A Fragile Republican Coalition 303
- Aftershocks 313
Chapter 12
- Endgames and Aftershocks 316
- Bargaining Positions and Bargaining Rules 317
- Endgame One: The Budget Process and Initial Vetoes 320
- Endgame Two: The Senate Bill and Gubernatorial Intervention 321
- Endgame Three: Moving a Bill 325
- vProvisions of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act 328
- Aftershocks 335
- Conclusions 337
Chapter 13
- Gaining Ground? The New World of Welfare 342
- Declining Caseloads 343
- State Program Design 344
- Welfare Offices 347
- The Behavior of Welfare Recipients 350
- The Long-Term Prognosis 352
Chapter 14
- Welfare Reform and the Dynamics of American Politics 355
- The Politics of Welfare Agenda Change 355
- The Political Barriers to Comprehensive Welfare Reform 359
- Enacting Welfare Reform, 1995-96 364
- The Centrality of Choice 382
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