GOP Assembles Its Private Safety Net : Welfare: Gingrich brings in activists from grass-roots groups that Republicans would want to fill gaps left by huge budget cutbacks.

Responding to concerns that Republican funding cuts will leave the nation’s poor out in the cold, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) brought together a coalition of privately funded, grass-roots organizations Thursday that represent his vision of the safety net of the future.

Gingrich invited to the Capitol an array of activists, many of them religious, who have dedicated themselves to helping the homeless, substance abusers, gang members or other needy Americans.

“This is a very important part of the next stage,” Gingrich said, referring to the non-government support system that he hopes will replace existing tax-supported assistance programs. He sought to show that the poor would be better off relying on more efficient private organizations for help.

As a case in point, Gingrich cited Robert Cote, a former drug addict who runs a shelter for 100 homeless people in Denver on an annual budget of $320,000--all raised from private sources. Across town, a government-subsidized facility spends $8.8 million to house only 20% more people.

“And then you wonder why I think we can get to a balanced budget by 2002?” Gingrich told reporters.

Many policy analysts, Democrats and welfare advocates expressed doubt that private organizations could fill the gaps that would be left if all the proposed GOP cutbacks were enacted.

“They’ve got to create a vision that it’s not such a terrible thing to do,” said William Dickens, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank. “It’s an important part of solving the problem they have created by saying they will balance the budget and cut taxes,” Dickens said. “The American electorate really wants to believe (that) they can have their cake and eat it too. So this is probably very effective rhetoric.”

The GOP plan is to give the states control of a vast number of programs for the poor and needy, including food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and child welfare. The federal government would give states set amounts of money, regardless of changes in the size of their welfare caseloads. The states then would have wide latitude to decide who would get assistance.

That approach would replace the existing federal entitlement apparatus, under which anyone who qualifies receives aid, with federal and state spending expanded to meet demand.

Opponents argue with Gingrich’s claim that private organizations will fill in gaps in assistance, stressing that charitable giving declines in difficult economic times.

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“You can’t make up the loss of the safety net through charitable giving,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), an advocate of child welfare programs. “Gingrich is saying this is going to be better for the poor because it’s more efficient, which we know is not true.”

Gingrich’s approach builds on the philosophy that inspired former President George Bush’s “Points of Light” campaign, which encouraged individuals and private charities to contribute money and energy toward improving society.

But Gingrich would go further, calling for volunteer efforts and private, community-based groups to become the basis of a new safety net. He encouraged governors to rely on private programs as they restructure their welfare systems.

“The idea of decentralization is not to create 50 new versions of the mess the federal government’s made,” Gingrich said. “The idea is to liberate the states to actually invent new systems and new approaches that are based on empowerment and based on transformation and based on a sense of spiritual commitment.”