Reagan, Unions and Welfare

On January 30, I circulated my last commentary, entitled, “What Reagan did and what the Democratic Party should have done.” I conclude with, “Next time: Reagan and the Air traffic controllers strike, Clinton and “the end of welfare as we know it”, and Bush initiatives and Democratic ineffective responses.” 

In discussing the Air traffic controllers’ strike I must refer you back to my comments in “Why this is so (Cont. 3) where I discussed the decline of the union movement and it’s falling into disrepute. In addition to the issue of featherbedding, illegal strikes by public employees such as the subway strike to which I alluded, soured the public’s attitude. Thus, when the Air traffic controllers struck in violation of the law to the great inconvenience of the traveling public there was outrage and when Reagan simply dismissed all the strikers, he was applauded by the bulk of the public for taking a courageous stand. 

What the public never focused on was that the strikers were striking not for selfish ends but rather for better safety conditions to benefit the public. Furthermore, the punishment did not fit the crime. Normally, when a person is dismissed from a job, he can seek another job with another employer. This was not true for the controllers. There were no other employers for them but the federal government. Thus Reagan’s action totally deprived them of their livelihood. Had they been sent to jail for a number of years but then been allowed to resume their profession their punishment would have been less then what Reagan imposed on them. But no one came to their defense. Reagan was hailed for his firm position in the face of an illegal strike. It was a major event in the continuing demise of unionism and a further triumph for the surging rightist movement. The failure of liberals and the Democratic Party to speak out against this injustice was wrong both as a matter of principle and for the future of unions, liberalism and the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, Clinton and “The End of Welfare As We Know It,” was another serious miscalculation on the part of a Democratic Administration.

To understand this fully, we have to go back to the Reagan administration and understand that Welfare, or it’s main component, “Aid to Dependent Children” was part of the original Social Security Act.

While most may not remember it, for most of the years that Welfare was part of America’s safety net, it was accepted as a necessary program, for who would argue that a mother with young dependent children, who had no husband, either because the children were born out of wedlock or because the father/husband had deserted, should be left to starve. Pro-family forces strongly believed that a mother with minor children had two obligations. 1.) to be with them to rear and raise them as well as provide discipline and education and 2.) to see that they had housing, food and clothing.

As it became more and more common for both parents to enter the workforce the first reason began to have increasingly less appeal. What it ignored, however, was that in middle and upper class families there was always enough money to pay a nanny or at least a baby-sitter to look after the children. This was not true for the typical welfare mother, who invariably had no job skills and little education, and who could ill afford a baby-sitter, if she could find a job at all. However, as the dependent mother became a phenomenon for generation after generation many came to feel that his cycle of dependency had to be broken.

It was in this atmosphere that Reagan took the issue out of the realm of rational discussion and brought it skillfully into the realm of emotion and even race consciousness. Reagan, during one address, told of a “Welfare Queen” (I have no doubt that in the public’s eye she was black even though there were far more white people on Welfare than black) “who had ripped off $150,000 from the government, using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards, and four fictional dead husbands. The country was outraged; Reagan dutifully promised to roll back welfare; and ever since, the "Welfare Queen" driving her "Welfare Cadillac" has become permanently lodged in American political folklore. 

Unfortunately, like most such anecdotes, it wasn't really true. The media searched for this welfare cheat in the hopes of interviewing her, and discovered that she didn't even exist. 

As a bit of class warfare, however, it was brilliant. It diverted public attention from insider traders in their limousines to Welfare Queens in their Cadillacs, even though the former were stealing thousands of times more from the American people than the latter. Just one example of the cost of white collar crime would become apparent a few years later, when President Bush bailed out the Savings & Loans industry with $500 billion of the taxpayer's money -- enough to fund 20 years of federal AFDC.“ (Quoted from huppi.com.)

Yet Democrats made no concerted effort to debunk this story and so it has endured. In essence it became the opening gun in the Right’s effort to dismantle all of the safety net and shift the county’s wealth upwards toward the well to do and in effect the ruling class.

Instead Clinton made ending “Welfare, as we know it” a major part of his campaign pledges. This was not bad because even without the lies of Reagan, it was evident that there was a problem when generation after generation stayed on the “dole.” The Clinton plan, however, made adequate provisions for educational programs, for childcare and other support devices that would make the transition from welfare to work positive, rather than punitive. Unfortunately. Clinton did not grasp the political priorities demanded by the public and as his first order of business concentrated on his Health Care Plan. He failed to heed the urgent call of the Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who proclaimed, that there is no health care crisis but there is a Welfare crisis.

The result was that Clinton lost on Health Care and worse, when he was ready to unveil his welfare plan, Republicans had won control of the Congress, and Clinton had lost the initiative. After a number of vetoes Clinton had to accept a Republican plan that was long on ending welfare, and short on the means and funding for it to also help welfare people out of poverty.

As appears to be the case over and over the Democrats cede the initiative to Republicans and allow them to set the agenda and the terms of the debate.

This is the case now, where Bush is being allowed to take the initiative and set the terms for the debate on bankruptcy, Class action, “Tort reform”, tax policy, the deficit, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to mention a few.

Next time I will discuss these issues specifically, and set forth my views as to how Democrats ought to be approaching them.