In a period of time when the Democrats appeared as if they had a lock on
Congress, the late Robert B. Carleson approached me: Would I agree to
hire him as a Free Congress Foundation Adjunct Scholar to work on
welfare reform if Richard M. Scaife would fund it. Bob Carleson had
extraordinary credentials. He had been the architect of Governor Ronald
Reagan's welfare reform in California. Reagan managed significantly to
cut welfare rolls while increasing support for those who really needed
help. It was Carleson's formula which finally persuaded sufficient
Democrats in the California General Assembly to back the program that it
moved forward.
Casper N. Weinberger was then working for the Nixon Administration. He
knew of Carleson's abilities. They had worked together in California. So
Weinberger, then known as "Cap the Knife," made Carleson Commissioner of
Welfare. Carleson began welfare reform in the Nixon Administration but
Nixon was upended after Watergate. Less than a decade later Ronald
Reagan was in the White House and Bob Carleson worked inside the Reagan
Administration, both at Health and Human Services and the White House,
to craft President Reagan's welfare reform. The Congress was not kind to
Reagan's welfare approach. But Dick Scaife was sympathetic and thus
began the long relationship between Carleson and the Free Congress
Foundation.
Carleson kept plugging away. He held private meetings with the Senate
Finance Committee to educate Senators as to how the system really
worked. Likewise, he briefed moderate Democrats and most Republicans on
the House Ways and Means Committee. They all told Bob to forget it. For
the most part they were resigned to ever increasing welfare rolls,
bringing ever increasing welfare costs.
Then came the unforeseeable earthquake. Republicans took over both
Houses of Congress. Even the House went strongly Republican. In the
first Congress of the Clinton Administration Republicans had formed a
working group on welfare, chaired by Representative, now Senator, James
Talent (R-MO). Carleson worked feverishly with that group to advocate
the correct approach to welfare reform - namely, giving block grants to
the states for AFDC and giving them wide latitude in writing their own
regulations. Carleson worked extremely hard to counter those
conservatives and Republicans who wanted to write national regulations.
Carleson understood that in an unsympathetic Administration rules would
be promulgated which would destroy any effective approach to welfare
reform. Some in the conservative movement labeled this a sell-out and
fought Bob both in private and even in public. He held his ground and we
were pleased to back him up.