President Calls for ‘Dramatic’ Changes in Welfare Programs

In a curtain raiser for release of his welfare reform proposals later this week, President Reagan told Americans on Saturday in his weekly radio address that “we must make dramatic changes in the old unworkable government programs.”

Reagan, who said he plans to discuss his welfare proposals with the nation’s governors when they meet in Washington later this month, offered no detailed plan but made it plain that his approach would be to give greater flexibility to states and cities to deal with local welfare problems.

“We know that solutions to welfare dependency must come from states and communities,” he said. “And those of us here in Washington must have the courage to let them try.”

‘A Welfare Monster’

In his State of the Union address on Jan. 27, Reagan contended that the federal government had created “a welfare monster” and proposed “a new national welfare strategy . . . through state-sponsored, community-based demonstration projects.”

Such an approach was recommended in December by the White House Domestic Policy Council, which found that “weaknesses within our centralized welfare system contribute significantly to the persistence of poverty in America.”

The council recommended no figure for welfare spending, which is now estimated at about $150 billion yearly in aid from all sources to about 52 million recipients.

The President’s letter inviting the governors to a White House meeting pledged that reform would not mean a lessening of federal financial support. “The federal government must retain its current level of financing, but individual states and communities can best find the solutions to welfare dependency that will work best among their citizens and in their neighborhoods,” Reagan told the state chief executives who are expected to meet with him on Feb. 23 during their annual winter conference in Washington.

As he diagnosed the welfare system’s ills, Reagan echoed the charge made by many conservative critics that government efforts to improve the plight of the needy had actually made them worse off.

“From the 1950s on, poverty in America was on the decline as economic growth led millions up toward prosperity,” he said. “Then, as the federal government began to spend billions on welfare programs, poverty stopped shrinking and actually began to grow worse.”

Cites ‘Economic Success’

He contended that poverty had then begun to decline again as a result of what he called the “economic success” achieved under his Administration but he added: “The problem of welfare dependency remains.”

In the Democratic Party’s broadcast response, Rep. Tony Coelho of Merced said that “Congress is moving” on the welfare problem, and promised that Democrats will consider “sweeping proposals” for welfare reform and also to aid families stricken by catastrophic illness such as cancer and birth defects.