European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 19, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday March 19, 1986 columns & comments James j. Kilpatrick economists claim welfare system creates poverty is the nation s welfare system creating poverty rather than reducing it two Ohio University economists Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder Advance that argument in a paper published by the National Center for policy analysis in Dallas. Their Contention merits a look. At least 5.7 million people the authors say Are living in poverty by Choice As a result of the generosity of Public welfare. Each additional $1 billion in welfare spending increases the poverty population by 250,000. Put simply we Are experiencing More poverty because we have been increasing the amount we pay people to be  to arrive at these conclusions the authors developed a correlation Between welfare spending and poverty Levels throughout the nation in the years 1966-1984. They came up with some Eye opening data. The poverty rate in 1966, when Lyndon Johnson s War on poverty got under Way was 14.7 percent. It dropped to a Low of 11.1 percent in 1973, and then climbed Back to 14.4 percent in 1984. Statistically speaking we arc virtually Back where we started 20 years ago. Yet there is a difference. Two decades ago a theory was widely advanced that people were trapped in poverty for want of economic opportunities. Today s structural poverty is something else. To a much greater extent it is poverty by Choice the authors say. By that we mean that people choose poverty Levels of income Over non poverty Levels because they feel the combination of income and Leisure which accompanies poverty to be preferable to  the two economists looked at poverty and welfare state by state Between 1969 and 1979. In this period Only four of the 10 states that spent the most on Aid to families with dependent children Ardc experienced a reduction in their poverty rates. These were Minnesota Oregon Washington and Wisconsin. Vermont showed no change. But five of the 10 biggest welfare spenders California Connecticut Massachusetts Michigan and new York experienced increases in their poverty rates. New York s increase was a phenomenal 20.7 percent. Meanwhile the 10 states that were spending the least on Ardc were having a very different experience. Their poverty rates were going Down by an average of almost 25 percent. These 10 Are Alabama Arizona Arkansas Flor Ida Georgia Louisiana Mississippi South Carolina ten Nessee and Texas. These statistics the authors say dramatically con firm that High Levels of welfare benefits Are not the magic George will Road to eliminating poverty. All 10 of the Low Benefit states show considerably More Progress in eliminating Pov erty than the nation As a  Gallaway and Vedder made a special study of poor children. In 1969 the poverty rate for persons under 18 was 13.8 percent. By 1984 it had climbed to 21.1 percent. If the level of Ardc in 1984 in real terms had been no higher than in 1969, the poverty rate among children would be 3.9 percentage Points lower. Forget the numbers. The authors Point is that difference amounts to 2.5 Mil lion children. Look again thinking of poor children at the 10 highest and the 10 lowest Ardc states. Between 1969 and 1979, the number of children in poverty in the highest Ardc states increased by an average of 27.9 percent. In this same period in the 10 lowest states the rate fell by 17.4 percent. In 1969 Texas had a far higher rate of child poverty than new York. By 1979 the positions were reversed. What Price Public welfare the statistics Are formidably hard to absorb at a Quick glance. Because Lam by nature suspicious of All statistics that i do not stack myself i suspect there is More to the Story than meets the Eye. Certainly not Many households on welfare would think their government is treating them generously. Definitions of poverty vary enormously. Even so the evidence is startling. We seem to have Tum bled into a senseless situation in which the More benefits we provide the worse the picture gets. C Universal press Syndicate Gorbachev an rhetoric reveals an Merf system history is the history of mind and the soviet Union is brain dead. The regime that considers itself custodian of the science of Progress is Frozen As in Cloudy Amber. This conclusion is compelled by Mikhail Gorba Chev s Marathon speech of self revelation at the communist party Congress and the tone of the entire Congress. There is a stunning contradiction Between Gorbachev s Demeanour and his meaning. His body language is com manding his delivery suggests a March along a smooth path paved with syllogisms. But his words nearly 50,000 of them show How a foolish philosophy can kill the capacity for thought. Enduring five hours of Gorbachev an rhetoric is an exercise in fascinating boredom. Rhetorical modes can characterize a regime and his Mode is Leaden Leninist boiler plate leavened sort of by consciousness contracting trivia about this or that ministry that failed the heroic soviet worker by neglecting to use a new lubricant. All of this is couched in the clanging grinding jargon of marxism. Capitalism negates itself As it develops. General crisis of capitalism. Intrinsic contradictions of the capitalist world. Irreversible process of socioeconomic transformations. Protecting culture from Bourgeois vandals nation. The prevailing dialectic of development the metropolitan Center of imperialism that s us is filled with predatory appetites and lust for social re  but in the soviet Union things proceed swimmingly although the formation of the new Type of family is no simple matter even with the infallible guidance of Lenin As Lenin says. Lenin wrote. Lenin stressed. Lenin regarded. Lenin held. I should like to remind you of Lenin s words. To carry out the great Lenin s Behest. The firm foundation of marxist Leninist theory. The vitality of the marxist Leninist doctrine. The inexhaustible riches of Lenin s ideas. The principled Leninist decision. Nobody has a right to forget Lenin s Stern warning. There can be Only one answer to this a Leninist answer. Our party s tradition traceable to Lenin there is not a scintilla of evidence by which to defend Gorbachev against the charge of sincerity. He goes on and on and on about scientifically substantiated an Swers to fundamental questions. The Laws and objective logic of history s Law governed Onward process. Penetrate deep into the dialectic of events into their objective logic to traditional ideology he adds technological Monoma Nia which also is a tradition. Lenin s obsession was electricity he even defined communism As soviet Power and the electrification of the Countryside. Stalin having heard of a giant Grain farm in Montana launched collectivization of agriculture and acquired his own obsession the tractor. While killing 20 million peasants he accused them of among other crimes anti tractor ism Gorba Chev a Broad gauged thinker has three panaceas better attitudes reorganization for Good management and  on the eve of the party Congress a front Page editorial said the people must show selflessness persistence a fearless rejection of mental inertia of complacency and of everything that has outlived its  everything How about Reliance on such exhortations Gorbachev denounced sluggishness dullness in Ertia and stagnation while saying principles should be adhered to unswervingly and everyone should be dedicated and Resolute about doing everything Reso  Gorbachev the common scold complaining about inadequate uses of the communist system is called  actually no soviet tradition is older than that of scolding underlings. In january 1918, Lenin promised a purging of All kinds of harmful insects meaning not just class ene Mies but workers malingering at their  they included typesetters at the party print shops in Petro Grad. Fifty years later Solzhenitsyn noted acidly that it was Odd surely that workers who had just become dictators under Lenin s dictatorship of the proletariat were nevertheless immediately malingering at work that they were by definition now doing for their state themselves. The state which Marx said would Wither away is suffocating soviet society. What is withering away is the Appeal of the soviet Model and communist parties outside the soviet bloc. Marx used the term Bonapar Tim to describe military suppression of popular move ments. Communist Poland is governed by Bonapartis. And in Moscow the news is that nothing is or can be new. In his biography of Lenin Louis Fischer reports that the autopsy on Lenin showed neg Lible sclerosis but that the blood vessels of his brain were calcified when struck with a tweezer they sounded like  in that sense too Gorbachev s regime is True to Lenin. For that reason the regime is going to continue driving the nation into decline. C Washington Post writers group the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the . Government