The Educator's Guide to Substance Abuse Prevention by Weinstein Sanford

Author:Weinstein, Sanford.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135685591
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

WHAT RECENT EVENTS HAVE CREATED OPPORTUNITIES FOR CASE STUDY IN THE CLASSROOM?

Teachers should emphasize that the process described in the previous section usually produces moderation and incremental change in U.S. social policy. And, teachers should sensitize students to circumstances that bring about large-scale nonincremental change. One such circumstance is the existence or illusion of broad-based, emotionally driven, popular appeal (Darman, 1996a). In this formula, those ideas and policy solutions that are simple and have panacean allusions are the most seductive.

Nevertheless, radical change emanating from politically extreme positions is rare because the constitutional system of checks and balances presses policy toward the middle of the road. As the failed national experiment with alcohol prohibition revealed so dramatically, when policy does not incorporate the views of the middle, problems follow. For this reason, instances of dramatic change provide good case material for the classroom.

One example is Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax revision that produced the largest tax cut in the history of the nation, rather than an incremental change. Students will find that politicians jumped on the tax-cut bandwagon. They were happy to be identified with such a politically pleasing development, and were afraid not to be.

However, the other side of the initiative required proportionate cutbacks in expenditures, and this was the politically painful side. No one wanted to be identified with reductions in entitlements, especially middle-class entitlements such as social security, Medicare, student loans, farm price supports, veterans benefits, and so on (Darman, 1996a). The same reluctance led to accelerated defense spending rather than reductions. As a result, federal deficits and national indebtedness ballooned and have plagued the nation for more than a decade.

Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform legislation provides another case study of large-scale change. Clinton recruited David Ellwood, a Harvard social policy expert, to write new welfare legislation. Ellwood (1988) had authored the book Poor Support, an antipoverty classic that called for time limits on welfare.

Ellwood produced data indicating that most welfare recipients left the rolls in less than 2 years. But, he also found that a substantial minority stayed, and enough of these accumulated so that their numbers came to dominate the welfare rolls. At any given time, the average welfare recipient was in the midst of a 10-year spell of dependency (DeParle, 1996).

Ellwood’s central principles advocated time-limited support. However, he argued that time limits must be balanced with pledges of health care, child support, child care, wage supplements, and, if necessary, jobs when one’s entitlements expired. The original plan incorporated this principle to a reasonable degree, and as late as July 1994, looked as though it might become law.

However, within a few months, the Republicans captured Congress. The plan was shredded to tatters as President Clinton began to accede to conservative congressional demands, and Ellwood resigned in July 1995.

In passing the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996,” the president and Congress grabbed the political carrots by imposing time limits on welfare. But, they avoided the political pain of providing financial support for welfare recipients’ transition into the world of work.

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