Editorial
Hacks on welfare
may spell cutbacks
Some truth is contained within President Reagan's re
cent attacks on the welfare system. The welfare system does
create dependency, it does encourage families to separate,
and requiring recipients to work for benefits could produce
positive effects. However, whether or not his proposals will
actually benefit welfare recipients and the nation at large de
pend on the motives driving Reagan's welfare-revision
campaign. -
If Reagan achieved his aim of simultaneously suppor
ting military growth, avoiding a tax hike and eliminating the
federal deficit, domestic programs would have to be
drastically cut. Bombasting the welfare program as “anti
family” may be a Reagan ploy to inch toward massive cuts
in the system. Cuts included in his budget proposal may
foreshadow future plans to dismantle the welfare system.
Reagan called for review and overhaul of the welfare
system during his annual State of the Union Message to Con
gress Feb. 4. He held the welfare system responsible for
breaking up families and creating a “spider's web of
dependency.”
And in his budget proposal submitted the following
day, Reagan asked Congress to require employable adults to
search for employment in order to receive welfare benefits.
Saturday, Reagan said, “Obviously something is desperate
ly wrong with our welfare system.” Referring to welfare pro
grams. he said, “We’re in danger of creating a permanent
culture of poverty.”
Some of Reagan’s contentions are true. The welfare
system does tend to propagate dependence on the system.
The longer individuals rely solely on welfare for income, the
longer they are removed from the job market and the longer
they must continue to rely on the system.
In addition, education opportunities for the children of
welfare recipients are severely limited. Often the cycle
repeats itself from generation to generation.
And requiring welfare recipients to work for their
benefits, providing the system is implemented properly , can
produce beneficial outcomes. Workfare programs, in which
able adults are required io accept training or employment in
exchange for welfare aid, exist in more than 20 states.
If single parents with preschool-age children are exempt
from the work requirement and adequate child care is pro
vided for other single parents, the programs can provide par
ticipants with education and job skills and enable them to
wean from welfare reliance. Jobs can also provide par
ticipants with a sense of usefulness and self-esteem.
But even as Reagan called for efforts to employ welfare
recipients, his budget proposal included provisions to
eliminate by the end of the year a program that provides
employment counseling and job-location assistance to
welfare recipients.
Reagan is also correct in asserting the current welfare
system encourages families to break up. Single-parent
families are eligible for more welfare aid in most states than
two-parent families, thus many families separate as a means
to survive. But while Reagan has commented at length on
this problem, it is unclear how he proposes to solve it.
The key to a solution is providing enough welfare
benefits to two-parent families to dissuade them from break
ing up. But Reagan may simply be using a legitimate com
plaint to cast a negative shadow on the program in order to
create an atmosphere conducive to program cutbacks.
Oregon Daily
Emerald
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First let me thank the editors
of the Emerald for bringing up
the question of freedom of
speech and action in connection
with the effort to have. Military
Science deleted from our cur
riculum (ODE. Feb. It). These'
are important, widely held con
cerns about which there is
much misunderstanding and
some deliberate obfuscation.
There are many preprofes-' ■
sional areas not represented in
our curriculum, such as
engineering, training for the
ministry, modern farming, and
others. One university can’t do
everything: ’
Is it the Emerald's position
that persons interested in these
fields, and organizations pro
moting them, are being unfairly,
excluded and prevented from
presenting their views oh cam
pus. and that our students are
thereby deprived of some of
their rights?
If we could induce them to do
it. should we invite the Catholic
Church to set up. fund, staff and
manage a training program for
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Commentarx O: ^
* ° • ' ’•/ . . ’ o. •' ‘
ROTC is an outside group and
should be banned from campus
the priesthood, not under the
control .of . the University?
Should General Motors Corp. be
invited to run our business col*
lege in such a manner? Or
should the .CIA lie invited to set
up. staff and run a program in
spying and covert activities—
in the name of free speech and
freedom of choice for our
students? How about Accuracy'
in-Academia?- . • ° •
. There is . an immense • dif
ference between encouraging*
freedom of speech . and the
presentation o{ all views, bn
campus, and actively supper-*
ting training programs design
; ad. funded and. managed by in
trusive outside organizations
with little understanding or
concern for what makes a good
university. This is especially.'
true-in the case of highly cop-.’
trqversial organizations such as
the military or the Moral
Majority.
It is particularly true in the
case of the military since all of
us are forced to help fund their
programs through our taxes,
regardless of what we may think
of them. The University does
not select the instructors, con
trol the curriculum, and of
course, we have no control over
what the cadets may later be
ordered to do at our expense
and in our name —- as they did
in Indochina and may soon be
doing in Central America.
The instructors do not have to
meet usual faculty expectations
either before or after appoint
ment, are beholden to an out
side organization rather than to
the University and yet are ac
corded academic rank and
voting privileges.
In 1979, Thomas W. Carr,
then director of defense educa
tion for the Department of
Defense, outlined in con
siderable detail the Pentagon’s
plan for taking over higher
education in the United States
•' and'changing Ut character- Jh
• . predicted that "the military will
have, become 'a major inatru
merit for, youth-.socialization,
assuming a large portion of the
role once dominated.by. family,
church,. school and. civilian
work setting.‘V
" He also stated - that "the
■" military . stresses ^obedience.
. established .procedures- and
hierarchy — and has little in
terest in a morn abstract scan h
.for purer knowledge Education
and the armed forces have come
° a Jong way. together-and the
future looks bright." . •
.. i ■ o ° Q ■ -
We now see his predictions
becoming reality with frighten-,
ing rapiditywith the drying up
of legitimate funding sources
for l Iniversity programs and
student assistance, the burgeon
ing military programs. Defense
Department- grints, .RjOTC
scholarships and the. illegal use
Of student financial records by
draft registration officials; -
It is-not my-motion,, but the
military whichdenies freedom
of speech here. IfjRQTC officers
make public statements oppos
ing Pentagon or administration
policies, no matter how idiotic
the policy, they would be
promptly fired or removed from
their position. Even their ad
vanced students must take a
"loyalty'’ oath, interpreted by
their superiors as an oath of
obedience.
It is not an appropriate activi
ty for the University to actively
promote militarization of our
country. Doing so does not pro
mote free speech or freedom of
choice.
By Bayard H. McConnaughey
Bayard McConnaughey is a
University biology professor
who recently made a motion to
the University Senate to ban
ROTC' from campus.