The Republican welfare plan now proposed in Congress should become law. There are a number of important issues raised by this proposed legislation and by the arguments offered on both sides of the issue. These are the ten real issues found in the research on this topic:
1. State control versus federal control
2. Morality issue related to the idea that people should develop a work ethic rather than being weaned away from one
3. The need to balance the federal budget
4. Imposing time limits and work requirements
6. Family cap so that no additional funds will be provided for additional births
7. Withholding benefits for those who may be legal residents--demand for citizenship should be a requirement
8. All benefits should be withheld from those who are here illegally to help reduce illegal immigration
9. Benefits should be withheld from those who are subject to addiction or alcoholism and who will not go into a program and change their behavior
10. Welfare should be seen as a temporary assistance and not as a lifestyle choice
Of these ten, the first three constitute the three ultimate issues. The first of these represents the essence of the Republican revolution in Congress, the devolution of power from the federal level to the state and local levels as a way of assuring that the people have more direct control over how their money is spent and over how programs are implemented. This has been designated the New Federalism and harks back to the idea of the Founding Fathers that the federal government should do only what is necessary for a central government to do while all other powers devolve to the states as the logical bodies to have sovereignty. The trend has been in the other direction for decades, at least since the era of the New Deal. While federal control may have bene defensible in a crisis, such as was presented by the Great Depression or by a war, in more normal times the ...