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Abstract
What Kaus proposes as a new "Civic Liberalism" is a worst-case example of social engineering. And an expensive one at that. Kaus attacks what he derides as "Money Liberalism," but his plan to abolish welfare and replace it with a public-jobs program modeled on the WPA would, by his own calculation, cost three times as much as the existing program.
The Western Europeans assist a lot of single-parent families. Which brings up another of Kaus' people-less social categories-"illegitimate children" (a vile phrase)-always faceless and most often criminal. Plenty of welfare kids are nourished by their mothers. Yet if those women refuse to work at one of the new WPA jobs and can find no other, they will, under his plan, no longer be permitted food stamps or other aid. Don't worry about the kids: "She," the mother who doesn't fall into line, loses her check and can't feed the kids, "is subject to the laws that already provide for removal of a child from an unfit home." So putting kids into "new institutions such as orphanages" is the neo-liberal's contribution to the family-values debate?
Kaus' most despised category-welfare mothers-are assumed to be primarily black, urban and long-term dependents on the rolls. While black women make up a high percentage of longer-term welfare recipients, they are not a majority of those who turn to the welfare system in need. In his eagerness to get at the "underclass," Kaus is willing to destroy a system that has proven useful to many Americans who can in no way be associated with his specter of the underclass.