76-07-B2
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Welfare
TranscriptThe American people are the most generous people on Earth. They can also be the most angry people on earth when they feel they're being cheated. I'll be right back. Back in 1971 when California completed the first and up till then the only major reform of welfare ever attempted, we discovered the rewards were astounding. First off we halted an annual increase in the welfare rolls that was a staggering 40,000 cases a month and replaced it with an 8000 a month decrease. The truly needy benefited because we were able to increase their grants by 43 percent, while at the same time we saved the taxpayers two billion dollars over a three-year period. The one question I've heard all over this land in these past many months is, "what can we do about welfare?" Well, as usual when things reach a certain point in this country, the people begin to stir and action follows. Four years ago, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, a woman named Dorothy Forney led in the formation of the National Welfare Fraud Association. I feel a little smug because she says that California was the inspiration. Now in Saint Clair county Illinois, another woman, 29-year old Rosa Gossage, assistant state's attorney has become probably the most productive welfare fraud prosecutor in the United States. Rosa worked her way through the University of Illinois and DePaul University law school. She has no fondness whatsoever for freeloaders. In just two years she has filed charges against 350 suspected welfare cheaters and has a near perfect record of convictions. She says, "The cheating was so blatant, I could hardly believe it." and she described the cheaters as "leeches who drink up the resources of those who need welfare assistance." She found, as we had in California, that there were those with unreported income and others with multiple addresses collecting several welfare checks. One of her finds was a county supervisor collecting welfare under her maiden name. Another owned a tavern which she hadn't reported and was selling it to another welfare recipient. One woman not only had a full-time job but she won $10,000 in the state lottery which she didn't report. Finally, just pulling a file at random, she showed a Wall Street Journal reporter the case of a woman who had reported her husband as having deserted her ten years ago, but they still have a joint checking account, co-signed for a small business administration loan and paid thirteen thousand dollars for a fish market. When a legislative committee asked Mrs. Gossage how so many people could get on the rolls illegally she said, "It's easy, they just lie." Now Illinois is sending teams into other counties. In Michigan, the state expects to save $50 million this year just by turning up absent husbands and fathers whose families have been getting welfare. Politicians in Washington keep saying "Something must be done," and many of them say we should turn welfare back to them in Washington. Don't you believe it. Welfare varies from state to state but pretty generally it's run by the counties under a state welfare office, wwhich in turn is subject to rules and regulations of H.E.W. in Washington. Much of what is wrong can be corrected if we will, at the county level, tell county government we want them doing what Mrs. Gossage just started doing in Saint Clair county Illinois. As the executive director of National District Attorney's Association says, "Too many prosecutors ignore welfare fraud because you have to put on your hat and coat and go out and find it." This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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