Two federal lawmakers have called for an investigation into how states are spending the welfare billions that Congress doles out to them.
It’s about time.
Mississippi’s scandalous use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money has been national news for more than three years. Congress should wonder whether what transpired in this state, where at least $77 million was allegedly stolen or squandered by government officials and their cronies, might be happening elsewhere.
The two Republican congressmen — one from Missouri, the other from Illinois — say they want the General Accounting Office to find out. The GAO is the independent, nonpartisan agency in Washington that examines how taxpayer funds are spent.
Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, who broke the scandal in 2020, testified a couple of months ago before a congressional panel about ways to combat the misuse of TANF funds. He recommended that state agency heads be required to sign statements under penalty of perjury about the number of people served by assistance programs and for the federal government to come down hard on state agencies that fail to properly monitor nonprofits receiving welfare grants.
A better idea might be to shift back toward direct financial assistance to the poor and away from the grants to nonprofits that invited abuse in the first place.
The problems with TANF date back to the mid-1990s, when the federal government overhauled welfare in an effort to reduce dependency among the poor. Rather than giving poor families a steady cash handout, which could foster indolence, the states were sent the money in block grants and encouraged to set up training programs to move the poor off welfare and into work.
The theory was good; the execution was not. At least it wasn’t in Mississippi. Loose guidelines allowed the states to spend money in ways that produced marginal benefit except for those well-connected operators who got the lucrative contracts. It didn’t take long before the arrangements morphed from being creative to being crooked.
Many taxpayers don’t like the idea of handouts, and understandably so. It would be far more preferable if everyone could be self-sufficient.
Nevertheless, if the goal is to reduce poverty, direct assistance seems to do the job with greater effect and possibly less fraud.
