Welfare Is the 800-Pound Gorilla : It’s a labyrinth of 80 duplicative programs, costing billions, and it must be changed.

As Congress and the White House sally forth to slay the evils of welfare, it might be a good idea to find out just how big the monster is.

It’s pretty big. When most people think of welfare, they think of Aid to Families With Dependent Children and food stamps; or if they’re really up on it, they know about the Supplemental Security Income program for the elderly, blind or disabled, or the Women, Infants and Children food program. That’s four programs, and they’re sizable.

But I doubt you’ve ever heard of Assistance to Refugees and Cuban/Haitian Entrants. How about the Weatherization Assistance Program? Or the Emergency Food Assistance Program? How about the Nutrition Program for the Elderly, the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Needy Families Food Distribution Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for Mothers, Children and Elderly Persons or the Rural Housing Repair Loan Grants for very-low-income rural homeowners? Never heard of those? That brings the number of programs (have you been counting?) to 13.

So, how many do you think there really are, total? We haven’t even counted Medicaid, the most expensive welfare program of all. Federal and state Medicaid costs weighed in at a hefty $131 billion in 1993.

Or how about the program designed specifically to provide Day Care Assistance for Families “At Risk” of Welfare Dependence? Think about that for just a second: You can get assistance under one program if you can persuade a social worker that you “might” become dependent on another program (AFDC). It’s a good trick if you can pull it off. And you can, thanks to this government program, which brings our total to 15.

So, do you think we have, say, a total of 20 different welfare programs? Sorry. What if you double that, to 40? Or triple it, to 60? You’re still coming up short. The last time I counted, the federal government was running 80 major, interrelated and frequently overlapping welfare programs, while states operated their own duplicative welfare efforts. And I’m not talking about middle-class entitlements like Social Security. I’m talking about just those programs targeted for poor and low-income Americans.

Welfare programs provide cash aid (nine programs costing $71.5 billion in 1993), food aid (11 programs costing $36 billion), medical aid (eight programs costing $155.8 billion), housing aid (15 programs costing $23.5 billion), energy aid (two programs costing $1.6 billion), jobs and training (nine programs costing $5.3 billion), education aid (10 federal programs costing $17.3 billion), social services (11 programs costing $8.4 billion) and urban and community aid (five programs costing $4.8 billion).

The total cost of state and federal welfare in fiscal 1993 was $324.3 billion. That came to more than $3,300 for each family that paid federal income taxes that year.

So, why are there so many programs doing so many of the same things? Because when one program doesn’t work, the politicians just propose another. And if that doesn’t work, another. That process has been going on for three decades. If $30 billion doesn’t do the job, maybe another $40 billion will. And so on.

If you think I am exaggerating the shallowness of thought that went into erecting the welfare state, reflect on this: The federal government has spent more than $5.4 trillion on its losing War on Poverty since the onset of the Great Society three decades ago.

For $5.4 trillion, you can buy every factory, all the manufacturing equipment and every office building in the United States. Then, with the money left over, you can buy every airline, railroad, trucking firm, the entire commercial maritime fleet, every telephone company, every radio and television broadcasting and cable company, every power company, every hotel and every retail and wholesale store.

If Congress fails to institute fundamental change, taxpayers will fork over another $2.38 trillion for this hodgepodge of waste and inefficiency in just the next five years--all to pay for a system that is not ending poverty but instead is rapidly destroying the family structure of America’s low-income neighborhoods.

A dramatic overhaul of welfare, reversing the trends of the last 25 years, is required. But first, you might want to know what Congress is dealing with.