The complete version of this testimony if available here  as an Adobe Acrobat PDF

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about the outcome of the historic welfare legislation that was passed ten years ago. The national debate leading up to the enactment of welfare reform in August 1996 and the results of its implementation since then afford the country a set of profound lessons about how “we the people” can bring about profound change that dramatically improves the lives of millions of our fellow citizens.

In the last several months I have been drawn to reading a number of books about Abraham Lincoln. I was particularly struck by the message that Lincoln delivered to Congress four short months after he took office and on the first Independence Day during an unfolding Civil War.

The civil division in the country no doubt prompted Lincoln to reflect deeply on the essential nature and purposes of government. His historic task was to define the form and ends of the Union for which he would ultimately rally and lead his countrymen to preserve. In one section of the speech he wrote that the leading of object of government “is to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.”

I cite this passage because I believe it to be not only an eloquent statement of the republican principles upon which the nation was founded but also a fair description of the spirit that animated those leaders in the states and the Congress who led a three decade long effort to reform the welfare system.

We were determined to lift the “artificial weights” of a bureaucratic system of welfare that drained individual initiative and energy and hurt the very people it was designed to help. In its place, we were determined to clear a path of work and opportunity that would develop the habits of success that would lead to self-sufficiency.

This effort has been largely successful. Welfare rolls have declined nearly 60% in the past ten years and fewer families are on welfare than at any time since 1969. Nearly a million and a half fewer children live in poverty than ten years ago, with child poverty rates among African Americans and Hispanics down markedly. At the same time, employment among single mothers has increased dramatically, reaching 63 percent today, the highest ever.

There are many other measurable outcomes from this reform legislation that warrant your close assessment. We should make every effort to see what has worked well, so we can continue it, and what has worked less well, so we can make adjustments and improve it. But I leave the bulk of this statistical assessment of the outcomes to the very talented scholars whom you have assembled for your panel who have labored far more than I in measuring the precise impact of welfare reform from a myriad of angles.

Instead, I would like to share the 10 big lessons that I have drawn from the successful effort to design and implement welfare reform and suggest that we should apply these lessons to developing a next wave of reforms in order to lift the artificial weights from--and elevate the condition of--our fellow citizens.

 The complete version of this testimony is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF