friday, September 25, 1931
daily nebraskan
page 3
Speaker urges welfare reform
By Tom Shelton
Ronald Reagan's chief deputy director of social welfare
when he was governor of California said Thursday night
that the "stage is now set for an overhaul of the welfare
system."
Charles D. Hobbs, who served for Reagan from 1970
through 1972, spoke about "The Decline and Fall of the
Welfare Industry" before a crowd of 200 at the Sheldon
Memorial Art Museum.
Hobbs said the welfare system, which began with the
expressed purpose of helping people, has become a sys
tem more interested in helping itself.
He said the welfare industry is spending too much and
that the excalation of welfare expenditures began with
Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" during the 1960s.
Hobbs said the fact that one out of every four persons
in the United States is on welfare demonstrates the sys
tem has become too generous in deciding which people
are "the truly needy."
"The welfare industry has escalated the level of need to
make more people eligible for benefits," Hobbs said. "The
increase of the amount of need is the welfare industry's
counterpart to demand."
Hobbs said the welfare industry intentionally makes its
system as complex as it can so no one, not even Congress,
knows exactly how to attack its growth.
Reform attempts
Hobbs said those who attempt to reform the welfare
industry are repeatedly defeated by the system, which he
said "altered reform attempts to continue its expansion
ary goals."
Hobbs criticized the number of welfare programs and
said 47 was too many and only complicated things.
Hobbs said many families take advantage of being eli
gible for too many programs and that overlapping benefits
"point out the absurd complexities of the system."
Hobbs praised Reagan's performance as governor of
California. He said Reagan "stood up and told people the
welfare system is not a good way to live."
Hobbs said Reagan reduced the number of welfare re
cipients in California while increasing the amount paid to
the truly needy.
Hobbs said the time has come to reverse the growth of
welfare expenditures and the number of dependents.
He said that by reducing duplicate programming, wel
fare costs could be cut 50 percent. In addition, Hobbs ad
vocated the reduction of the number of workers in the
welfare industry.
Decentralization
Hobbs said that the welfare system has to be decentra
lized to become more efficient. "This will be the most im
portant and difficult problem," he said.
Hobbs stressed the need for state control of welfare
and said control should eventually pass to the local level.
Hobbs said welfare reform will take time and that the
welfare industry will fight back.
"Reform will contradict with the paternal philosophy
of the welfare industry which says that welfare recipients
can't take care of themselves."
Hobbs said welfare is an incentive to be non-productive
and has made recipients outsiders to the capitalist system.
"It seems to me that capitalism should apply to every
one," he said.
After his speech, Hobbs answered questions. Wallace
C. Peterson, UNL professor of economics, responded to
Hobbs' speech.
Calling several of Hobbs' figures "severe distortions,"
Peterson said Hobbs was looking for "a conspiracy and a
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Rare exceptions
Peterson said that very few welfare families eligible for
more than one benefit take advantage of them. He said
that welfare abuses like those reported by the media are
rare exceptions.
Peterson said Hobbs supported his attack on the wel
fare industry with figures distorted because they were re
corded during times of recession or war.
After Peterson's five-minute impromptu oration,
Hobbs commented, "That's an awful lot of question to
answer at one time."
"Those were comments," Peterson said. His statement
drew laughter from the mostly reserved, formally attired
crowd, which had politely listened to Hobbs' speech.
Hobbs repeated many of his previous statements and
said his figures were accurate and often used by "men not
generally thought of as conservatives."
After the Hobbs-Peterson exchange, several more ques
tions were asked, but none had similar impact.
Hobbs' presentation was made possible by a grant from
the Dr. Sertoli Foundation Forum on the Future of Pri
vate Enterprise. It was organized chiefly through the ef
forts of Dolores T. Martin, UNL associate professor of
economics. The next speech in the series will be Oct. 22.
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