TANF and the Importance of Welfare Reform The idea of welfare reform is not a new concept. The federal government is responsible for funding subsidy programs for low income Americans. One of these programs is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). According to the Office of Family Assistance (1999) the TANF program is intended to assist low income families to achieve self sufficiency. It goes on to explain that states receive block grants for which they are to plan and initiate programs that accomplish one of the purposes of the TANF program. The four purposes of the TANF program are to: * Provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes. * Reduce the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage. * Prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. * Encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families (Office of Family Assistance, 1999).
On the surface, these four purposes seem very competent in promoting the idea that being on welfare permanently is not the idea of the assistance program. However, federal involvement in welfare has only made things worse, complicating matters by the waste of taxpayers' money while doing very little to solve the problem of long-term poverty. The policy pathway being proposed in this memorandum is that the federal government should remove their role in TANF and all related welfare programs and leave these programs to state governments or even better the private sector. Another policy suggestion would be to get states more involved through programs such as Beyond Welfare, which is a totally new approach to downsizing on the need for federal assistance programs through social networks. Using this policy pathway we are going to delve deeper into why these ideas and new policies are important, compare and contrast these ideas to the current TANF program, articulate the ideas on how to remedy the issue of corporate malfeasance and finally provide recommendations on how to improve overall corporate governance.
Why it is Important Welfare reform and specifically the TANF Program need fresh ideas and people willing to tackle the problems of why these programs are failing. Why are they failing? One of the goals of the TANF program as referenced above is to assist needy families in order to make them self sufficient. To help them so they are not permanently depending on a welfare check. This is one place TANF and other assistance programs fail miserably. According to Jeffrey (2013) "Americans who were recipients of means tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year around full time workers, according to the data released this month by the Census Bureau" (para. 1). When there are more people in the United States depending on assistance programs than there are full time workers the goal of helping people to be self sufficient is blatantly not met. Jeffrey (2013) goes on to explain that the Census Bureau counted the people receiving government assistance benefits as anyone residing in a house in which one or more people received benefits from the program. Alarmingly, numerous people occupied households that were getting more than one form of means-tested benefit at the same time. This brings us to another issue of importance for welfare reform. This is the issue of the waste of money and the improper use of the money used to fund the government assistance programs. First let us examine the cost for TANF and other low income assistance programs. According to MacDonald (2012) "the Senate Budget Committee is out with a new report today that shows there are 83 overlapping government welfare programs that together represent $1.03 trillion in fiscal 2011, based on data from the Congressional Research Service" (para. 9). The federal government spends more on overlapping welfare programs than it does on national security. It could be for this reason alone that welfare programs need a serious overhaul, especially considering the nations looming debt problem. Imagine a world where there were less people on these overlapping programs, more people who were self sufficient and a nation that was being proactive on downsizing their debt. This should be paramount but just the opposite is true. MacDonald (2012) goes on to state:
Existing federal policy has explicitly encouraged growth in welfare enrollment, combined with a weakening of welfare standards and rules. Take food stamps. This program has quadrupled in the last decade. But, rather than trying to curb spending here, the government advertises to get more people on the books. Government spending on food stamps, the second largest federal welfare program has quadrupled since 2001, yet the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a variety of programs and advertisements whose explicit and unmistakable goal is to expand enrollment to new record highs.
This out of control spending and actual wanting more people on these programs is not what these programs were designed for. As referenced above the TANF program (food stamps as referenced in the quote above) supposedly has a goal to make people self sufficient and not reliant on the program for long periods of time, which is precisely why this program needs new ideas that will hopefully help bring this spending of trillions of dollars into check. Not only do these programs cost exorbitant amounts of money, the waste or a person misusing their assistance is another overwhelming problem. The news in today's world is riddled with stories on welfare fraud and abuse, like the woman who won the lottery but was still receiving her welfare check, among many others. This fraud and abuse is another important reason more needs to be done to keep the welfare programs in check. The fraud that is in the news most currently is centered around the shift from issuing paper food stamps to people receiving their benefits loaded on a plastic card. As stated by Malkin (2013) "according to the Department of Agriculture, illegal food-stamp use costs the public upward of $750 million a year and a report by the Government Accountability Institute last fall revealed that few security measures are in place to monitor EBT card fraud" (para. 7). This is another profound reason that the current welfare system is broken and consumed with spending on programs that are not working and are full of fraudulent activities. These are just some of the reasons why it is important for a new policy pathway.
Compare and Contrast As mentioned above the TANF program has four purposes or goals. The four purposes of the TANF program are to provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes, reduce the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage, prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families (Office of Family Assistance, 1999). Although these four goals of the TANF program are a nice idea, they simply are not working for the reasons discussed previously, not to mention programs like TANF actually promote, not discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancies because of the increasing availability and value of welfare have made out of wedlock pregnancies much more attractive. Comparatively, removing the government welfare programs as a suggested pathway and putting it in the hands of the state governments or private sector would be beneficial because it would provide flexibility and variety. Private aid organizations would have a different pathway in knowing that truly helping people and charitable giving starts with assisting individuals to make better life choices to begin with. They would also provide a more proactive approach to not just throw money at the problem but more importantly embrace the need for education and assistance to help needy individuals to truly become self sufficient. It is also very evident in a Beyond Welfare platform that assists people in providing the opportunity to be matched with resources in order to proactively help themselves instead of depending on the government to take care of them.
How to Remedy the Issue The problem with welfare programs that are currently in place are they continue to spiral downward and are not hands-on enough to handle the issues needy families face in today's society. More people are on welfare in the United States than there are full time workers. The current system is broken and it is going to take a special pathway to have any chance to actually remedy the issues. As previously mentioned, the federal government has many programs in place to assist needy families, which is a thoughtful idea. These programs only address the issue of providing monetary assistance for these families. They do nothing to actually help needy families to only have to rely on this assistance until they can get on their feet. Therefore, the proposed pathway is to remove the federal government's aid, or at the very least reduce it. Turn assistance programs over to state governments and the private sector, which would get rid of the negative incentives created by welfare causing less people to be needy. Private charities would be better than government assistance because they are able to provide personalized methods depending on each persons needs. The current government welfare system is more of a one size fits all, which not every family is going to fit into the same categories. Private charities would be able to tailor the assistance dependent upon each needy families different scenarios. The more options to help a needy family would be better instead of lumping everyone together. Probably the biggest impact and driving force as to why this pathway would be very beneficial is that private charity would not provide a long-term dependency among people receiving the aid. It would be a way to get back on their feet but not become a dependent way of life. Additionally, if programs tailored after Beyond Welfare were started in every state it would also make innovative leaps and bounds in assisting lower-income families to not be dependent on government welfare programs. The Beyond Welfare program is a social networking platform that allows not only needy people but also anyone to be a part of the group to help out. All different income earners are a part of the group. The program works to meet some of the basic needs for the low-income people in the group by providing a car to get to a job, child care, a washing machine, etc. Ultimately the goals of the program are not only to make connections and build a social network among a group of people who have lower incomes but more importantly they are to build and shape relationships and networks across communities and economic lines (Senty & Saasta, 2014). This again is a proactive approach that actually proves that helping lower income families can be done by not just providing financial assistance but by proactively helping themselves by learning how to network and find other solutions to their economic issues. This program also avoids the problem with lower income people becoming dependent on financial aid. They may be dependent on the program for a lengthy period of time but it provides a safety net not a free handout that causes dependency and laziness.
Conclusion and Potential Challenges As evidenced in this memorandum the current federal government welfare system is not working, or perhaps it is working too much. There are 83 overlapping federal government welfare programs. The welfare system that was created to provide temporary assistance for low-income families has spiraled out of control and is not doing what it was intended to do. There are ethical implications of fraudulent activities and over spending running rampant. Therefore, the policy pathways in this memorandum are proposed as a practical approach to not only tackle the financial need of low income families but also helping them by assisting them to become self sufficient and to climb out of the poverty position. The proposed pathways would be a very positive positive approach that can breathe new life into a broken system and help families more than they are currently being helped right now. That being said, there may be opponents to the proposed pathways. Those that would oppose the proposed pathways may say that there could not possibly be enough charitable giving to support all the people who need assistance. This precludes that private charity would just reconstruct the current government programs. Remember, the advantage of private and charitable giving is that it is a less expensive and more innovative approach to assisting people who truly need help. Americans are the most generous people on earth, not only with their money but also with their time. That is why programs like Beyond Welfare are essential in helping needy families face the problem of poverty head on and without just providing financial assistance. Americans donate money and time all year long to help families, neighbors and others in need. That is a very poignant reason to believe that if the current government programs were discontinued it would bring a positive response both from recipients and from the very people wanting to help those who are truly in need.

References
Jeffrey, T. (2013). Census Bureau: Means-Tested Government Benefit Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Year Round Workers. Retrieved from http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-bureau-means-tested-govt-benefit-recipients-outnumber-full
MacDonald, E. (2012). The Trillion Dollar Cost of Welfare. Retrieved from http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2012/10/18/trillion-dollar-cost-welfare/
Malkin, M. (2013). EBT Abuse: The Cash-for-Drunkards Program. Retrieved from http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337437/ebt-abuse-cash-drunkards-program-michelle-malkin
Office of Family Assistance. (1999). About TANF. Retrieved from www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/programs/tanf/about
Senty, K. & Saasta, T. (2014). Finding New Ways to Get Beyond Welfare. Retrieved from http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337437/ebt-abuse-cash-drunkards-program-michelle-malkin