In Search of New Approaches

By Ed Magnuson.

The soul-searching among the Democrats in a New York City hotel last week was painful. They had gathered to discuss new approaches that the party should take toward one of America's most intractable social problems: the self- destructive cycle of unemployment, family disintegration and crime that has created what former Virginia Governor Charles Robb called a "permanent caste of destitute young men and women" in the nation's ghettos. One of the hosts was New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who was cast into the role of liberal standard-bearer by his stirring "shining city on a hill" speech at the 1984 convention; he has since worked to position himself for a presidential campaign by balancing pragmatic approaches with progressive ideals. The other sponsor was the Democratic Leadership Council, led by Robb, which has sought to bring the party back to the center.

In a celebrated speech earlier this year, Robb, a son-in-law of Lyndon Johnson, attacked the Democrats' traditional focus on racism as the cause of black poverty and on welfare programs as a way to alleviate it. At last week's session he again charged that the welfare system "may be subsidizing the spread of self-destructive behavior in our poor communities."

This theme has also been raised by some black intellectuals, who have criticized traditional civil rights leaders for failing to promote the notion that poor blacks should take more responsibility for teenage pregnancy and social disintegration within the ghetto. Harvard Government Professor Glenn Loury, one of the leading lights of this new movement, told the Democrats that welfare "makes it possible" for a recipient to remain locked in poverty. Calling for a "frank acknowledgment" of the pathological behavior of some segments of the underclass, he stressed that welfare recipients should be encouraged to develop an "obligation" to improve their situation by taking on the responsibilities of work and family.

New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who 20 years ago presciently warned of the breakdown of the black ghetto family, rejected the idea that Democratic programs should be blamed for creating a dependency on Government, which aggravated the underclass crisis. "It has become a belief bordering on prejudice," he said, "that the social ills of the present are the consequence of misguided Democratic social policies of the past two generations. None hold to this belief more guiltily, if furtively, than the Democrats." His party, Moynihan observed, is in "worse shape nationally than since the aftermath of the Civil War." He urged his colleagues to seek fresh ideas that go beyond calls for more self-help among blacks. "By all means, let us go on about self-reliance, gumption and go-gettingness," said Moynihan. "But if that is all there is to be by way of social policy, no one needs Democrats. And if that is all the social policy there is to be, Democrats shall have deserved their eclipse."

The discussion demonstrated that important factions of the Democratic Party are now willing to confront the topic of the underclass and think it could work to their political advantage. "If we approach the social question correctly," Cuomo noted, "we will seize the opportunity Reagan has given us." A common theme was that the Democrats must seek effective ways to improve the plight of the poor while not clinging to expensive programs that have not proved helpful. "What worked in 1966 may not work in 1986," said Pennsylvania Congressman William Gray, a black who chairs the House Budget Committee. "Saying that is not liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, it's common sense." Said Robb: "Laissez-faire may be good economic policy, but it's terrible social policy." The Federal Government, agreed Cuomo, must find "intelligent, fair and effective ways to help the poor help themselves." Eleanor Holmes Norton, who headed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the Carter Administration, stressed the importance of shoring up the "family mission" within the ghettos but added that "only government can create a mainstream of high-paying jobs."

Ronald Reagan's economic policies have created a period of general prosperity mixed with a worsening of the plight of the underclass. This has helped prompt a national re-examination of race and poverty, with a focus on the black-family crisis. Just last week the Census Bureau announced that more than 54% of all black children are now born to unwed mothers, compared with 18% for the population as a whole.

Mickey Kaus, writing in the New Republic, argues that the "workfare" programs instituted by many Governors (including Cuomo) should be radically strengthened through a strict requirement that welfare recipients take jobs. Nicholas Lemann, in an incisive series in the Atlantic, analyzes how the migration of poor blacks into the inner cities and the outward migration of middle-class blacks have created a destructive ghetto culture. It can only be broken, Lemann argues, by providing public-works jobs that get underclass blacks out of the ghetto.

Democratic Party leaders are beginning to wrestle with radical approaches like these. Many of the panelists at last week's forum discussed the need to provide jobs, experiment with workfare initiatives and find ways to shape Government programs so that they encourage, rather than discourage, self-help among the underclass. But as Moynihan noted, "We are grievously short of specific ideas." For the Democrats to regain the initiative on what has traditionally been one of their most important issues, the quest to conquer the problems of poverty in America, they will have to find ways to sharpen the ideas that they grappled with in New York City.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington and David Ellis/New York