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New Welfare Reform Legislation Invites Studies show that people who can't speak English are often doomed to economic hardship and an inability to fully participate in our society. In response, some anti-English advocates want to make all government services and benefits available in the hundreds of languages and dialects now spoken in the United States, and then provide welfare and other social services to those who don't speak English. In 1996, Congress rejected that approach, and chose instead to move more people off welfare rolls and into productive jobs. A new bill in Congress, H.R. 3459, would reverse that important reform. H.R. 3459 would require States to provide "appropriate bilingual personnel and printed material" for welfare reform programs. This unfunded federal mandate, however, would be costly and extremely hard to administer, and would undermine the historic welfare reforms passed only a few years ago. Using English is a key to full participation in the American economy, and any slowing of the learning process would encourage a return to an era of welfare dependency. In addition, H.R. 3459 would make it more difficult to detect and avoid fraud. Because administration in many languages is more costly and more prone to mistakes, skilled criminals could exploit this well-meaning proposal to drain yet more money from beleaguered State programs. |
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The
ELPAC Report 