Child Welfare, Parental Responsibility and the State

Welfare is our domestic Vietnam. Increased expenditures have brought diminishing returns. New approaches have been dis cussed for years, but truly innovative proposals remain stalled. The left wants double, the right wants half, and the result is deplorable as evidenced in the failure of H.R.I. In the mean time, spiraling costs have all but bankrupted state governments1 and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program has been most directly responsible.2 Within the AFDC program, paternal child abandonment and illegitimacy are the crucial problems. Detailed statistics are available elsewhere.3