Modest welfare reform is immoral?

Nancy Ford, administrator of Nevada's Division of Welfare and Supportive Services, split the baby Tuesday, adopting one policy change designed to meet federal requirements that aid recipients be required to look for work, but rejecting another.

Ms. Ford rejected a proposal that would have taken food stamps away from entire households when the head of the household failed to meet requirements such as attending employment workshops.

But she did approve a separate proposal to require those who don't keep their agreements to attend classes or look for jobs to "sit out" of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for three months. (Previously, those kicked off the welfare program for failure to comply with their "Personal Responsibility Plans" were allowed to reapply the following month.)

Ms. Ford said the change is designed not to save the division money but rather to encourage recipients to comply with those "Personal Responsibility Plans." The federal law that aimed to end "welfare as we know it" now requires recipients to meet requirements such as participating in work-related activities 30 hours per week.

"There are certain people out there who have learned to play the system and know how to get their benefits without doing the minimal amount of work," Ms. Ford explains. "If they put as much effort into work as they put into getting benefits, they'd probably be very successful in the work force."

Needless to say, even this minimal step outraged those who believe Americans who are willing to work should be taxed ever more to supply benefits to those who do not.

"This is so reprehensible I don't know where to begin," said UNLV social work professor Leroy Pelton.

"This is going to impact our community, our schools, our emergency rooms, our sheltering systems," agreed Terry Lindemann, director of Family Promise, a program that helps homeless families.

"Who's going to take care of those children because their parents are judged non-compliant?" she added.

Their parents, Ms. Lindemann -- or, if they cannot, then their extended families or their churches or other religious associations. And if all those fail, then foster parents duly assigned.

Was Ms. Ford's action Tuesday immoral, as the critics claim?

No. What is immoral is to oppose measures designed to protect taxpayers by encouraging welfare recipients to move off the dole and into productive employment, which -- in the long run -- will benefit their children far more than never-ending government "assistance."