Bill to reduce welfare benefits long overdue

When welfare becomes a lifestyle and not a safety net, no one wins.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon this week vetoed a GOP bill that would reduce lifetime welfare benefits -- in this case Temporary Assistance for Needy Families -- from five years to three years and nine months.

Missouri has just over 28,000 families on the TANF program and under the legislation, 3,155 families would lose their benefits because of the shorter time frame.

Nixon said the legislation would hurt families and especially children in announcing his veto.

But Republicans say the shorter lifetime limit will encourage families to enter the work force and not rely solely on government assistance.

Given the overwhelming majority the GOP holds in the Missouri Legislature, it's almost certain the Governor's veto will be overridden and the legislation will become law in Missouri effective Jan. 1.

The legislation establishes a number of requirements that would allow families to continue receiving benefits if they seek a job or enter a job training program.

The majority of states have a five-year lifetime limit though Missouri and eight other states have shorter policies.

The legislation is part of a national trend to address the growing welfare rolls and more specifically, those families who generationally live on welfare benefits.

Kansas and other states have imposed restrictions on welfare benefits to prohibit taxpayer funds being used for casinos, tattoos and other expenditures that seem inappropriate.

We join others in urging the Legislature to override the Governor's veto and put these new restrictions in place in Missouri.

Surely by now we have learned that a lifetime lived on government assistance does little to reduce poverty or to lift families out of the cycle of poverty.

Using our taxes, the federal government has spent literally trillions of dollars in a failed attempt to improve people's lives.

The result has been to produce an underclass of citizens who shun work in lieu of government assistance.

This policy has failed in countless ways and the answer is not to continue a program that has proven disastrous for the economy and the families it was designed to assist.

You can't mandate personal responsibility, but you can implement programs that will encourage self reliance.

The step to rein in welfare spending is appropriate and long overdue.