Progress in Welfare Reform:
An Interview with Louis Stokes

Aired April 13, 1999

David C. Barnett–Louis Stokes saw many efforts to reform social assistance during his thirty years in the U.S. Congress, and we've got him on the phone to give his assessment of welfare reform so far. Thanks for joining us, Mr. Stokes.

Louis Stokes–Thank you, it's nice to be with you this morning.

DCB–One of the goals of welfare reform was to cut out some of the bureaucracies, some of the stuff we've been hearing about, give the states more flexibility in operating their own programs. What's your thoughts on how we've been doing in that regard?

LS–Well, the evidence thus far coming in is that for many of the states, much of the welfare data and many of their programs are in total disarray. There has not been any ability nationwide to be able to show any clear effect of meaningful reform as it relates to the welfare programs. I saw a report, recently, where they indicated that eighteen months after Congress had changed the nation's welfare programs, that it had become clear that the mass of data that the government requires states to collect is in such a disarray that it's impossible to determine whether the law is working.

DCB–What about this whole issue we've just been hearing about, the caseworkers themselves, they feel like they've had all this stuff dumped on them and no one's looking after their interests?

LS–Well, I think that's a true and accurate picture, just as we have just heard in the story that unfolded on your program. This was one of the major concerns when we worked on welfare reform legislation, and that was being able to properly train people for work when the aim of welfare reform is to provide jobs for people so you can take them off of the welfare rolls, but you can see the frustration, there, that's occurring. One of the things that we've cited was that you must have good training programs, and subsequent to the training programs, you must have a job for that person to go on because it becomes even more frustrating to a person who is on welfare to be either trained and not given a job following the training or to be improperly trained and therefore ineligible for good employment.

DCB–So has the federal government kind of washed its hands of this; it said, "OK, we're going to turn this over to the states, you do it?"

LS–Well, I think that was the aim, frankly, of the Republicans when they passed the legislation that they passed in this Congress. I voted against the welfare bill, and I voted against it because of these kind of flaws that are coming to the focus right now, but I think this was their aim, to get the federal government basically out of the welfare business and leave it to the states, which is a part of the whole Republican philosophy in terms of turning over to the states many of the federal programs, and there's a real problem with that because as you do so, you also lose any type of control, and control goes solely to the states, and then what you have in 50 states are myriads of nightmares in 50 different states.

DCB–So what do you suggest we do? How can we backtrack to change it, in your opinion?

LS–Well, I'm not so sure you're going to be able to change it until you change the composition of the Congress. The Republicans are in charge of the Congress and this is their creation and I don't think you can do much about it until you change the composition of the Congress.

DCB–So say we change the Congress. What would you like to see made different in the way we're currently doing things?

LS–OK, first, what I think really has to happen is that the federal government must maintain certain standards that are applicable to all of the states. It is then necessary for the federal government to continue a monitoring process as it relates to those standards. We have to do away with each state being able to set up this whole myriad of standards that we're seeing around the country, different cut-off times, things of this sort, and unless we put in a floor nationwide - as we did many years ago - in order to try and change the condition that existed then as it related to poverty and welfare, but at that time the federal government was really interested in what was occurring in poverty.

DCB–Well thank you, Mr. Stokes.

LS–Alright, sir.

DCB–Louis Stokes is a former 11th District representative to the U.S. Congress.