Growing up I never met anyone who wasn’t a Liberal-Democrat. This included my entire family, everyone on my block in Brooklyn, all my parent’s friends and all of our relatives.
But, at the age of 14, we moved to Forest Hills, and I got a job as a babysitter, working for a young couple “upstairs”, who owned their own business. They were the first people I had ever met, who didn’t work for the city.
They were Republicans! But, according to my parents, “they were very nice people anyway.”
In 1962 I entered NYU Dental School, got married and moved into the city. My wife Judy taught third grade on the Lower Eastside. For the first time in my life, I saw a segment of society that I had never met before : “welfare” people. The families were hidden in certain areas of town, but the schools were rapidly being filled-with their children.
It was 1963, and what I didn’t know then, but I certainly know now, is that welfare, which my parents had preached as a necessary, temporary, safety net for those who truly needed help, had been transformed into a permanent, underclass of dependent people who appeared to be rather comfortable being subsidized by this program.
We all know the escalation of entitlements, not only in their cost but how it changed our society forever. The mantra became “Why should I work, when I make as much money on welfare?” What used to be a humiliation to be “on the dole,” became an accepted way of life.
But, then, in 1996, only after Democrat Bill Clinton had vetoed welfare reform three times, did the Republican Congress and the American people continue to press for reform. President Clinton realized that his reelection depended on it, and this legislation finally passed.
The Democrats went ballistic. The NY Times predicted that children would be “dying in the streets.” All because a federal law was passed that mandated that at least one half of all adult welfare recipients had to be involved in “work activities” which could be actual jobs, education or training programs.
The Liberals were flabbergasted with what happened. Within three years, the U.S. Government estimated that not only were 4.7 million Americans removed from the welfare rolls and the federal welfare caseload declined, 54 percent between 1996 and 2004 but there was a profound beneficial effect on their family structure.
But, the Progressives never let results stand in their way of creating a permanent subculture of dependent people.
So it was no surprise to anyone, when Barack Obama, on July 12, unilaterally removed the federally mandated work requirements for welfare recipients.
I never thought I would ever say that European socialism has taken over the American culture. But after four years under this president, nothing surprises me any more.
Dr Stephen Morris
North Hills
