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There is a long-term price of illegitimacy as well, one that resonates at a time when the fear of crime, particularly the crimes committed by a generation of young, pitiless men and boys, has become a national obsession. When people ask where all these 16-year-old predators are coming from, one answer is chilling: from 14-year-old mothers. More than half the juvenile offenders serving prison time were raised by only one parent. If present birthrates continue over the next 10 to 15 years, the number of young people trapped in poverty and tempted by the streets will increase dramatically. Says John DiIulio, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University: "You have a ticking crime bomb."
The second point of consensus is that historically the welfare system has rewarded everything it ought to prevent and punished everything it ought to promote. "The Federal Government has created a monster," says Ann Clark, a welfare case manager in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "I'm dealing with third- generation recipients. Welfare has become their way of life. It scares them to death to try to get off it." The idea is not that the government get into the business of deciding who should have children; rather it is to get the government out of such decisions, by removing all the perverse rewards and punishments embedded in the system.
Across the country, welfare case workers argue that most recipients want to work. "The problem is not work ethics," argues law professor Julie Nice of the University of Denver. "It is the lack of jobs." But those who do manage to find work can instantly lose their health coverage, food stamps, public housing and child care. Marriage too comes with a penalty. Mary Ann Mendez, a mother of three in Harlingen, Texas, received only Medicaid benefits when she was living with her common-law husband, who worked periodically. When he left her, however, her broken home was showered with benefits: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), more food stamps, gas money to get to and from school, and free day care. "It doesn't seem like they want families to stay | together," she says.
But when it comes to correcting all the other damaging incentives of the welfare system, the arguments break out. The hottest topic at the moment is the family cap. Already in New Jersey, Arkansas and Georgia, families receive no increase for children born while on the dole, and Clinton's plan would allow other states to follow suit. Since the average increase of about $67 is much less than the cost of raising another child, welfare mothers didn't really have much economic incentive to have more kids. But this above all is a symbolic issue, a chance for the government to send a message about how it plans to treat parents who have children they cannot afford.