Welfare reform plus

Politics | States win a new day to reduce caseloads, help poor families | Lynn Vincent

There's a firecracker named B.J. Walker living in Georgia and her philosophy is this: "Welfare isn't good enough for any child."

As it happens, the Bush administration shares that philosophy. On Feb. 8, following years of congressional stalling, President Bush signed legislation reauthorizing welfare reform. The reauthorization—piggybacked onto the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005—essentially hits the reset button on the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and requires state agencies to begin again in earnest helping welfare recipients achieve self-sufficiency.

When Mrs. Walker moved from a job spearheading welfare reform in Illinois to become Georgia's Commissioner of Human Resources in 2004, she imported a new values system: Working families are always better off than non-working families, and the job of welfare caseworkers is "not to get benefits out the door, but to help put families to work."