ge he used in this written testimony. According to him, there was a "striking public consensus" about the issue, and that subsidizing illegitimacy was both a "massive problem" and a "moral problem" (Bauer, 1996, p. 1). Later he noted that welfare reform that put recipients to work was still not sufficient because it did not address the "collapse of the family" (Bauer, 1996, p. 2). He further reported that research showed that "illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time" (Bauer, 1996, p. 2).
This, then, was about more than reducing taxes or moving people off the welfare roles. It was about eliminating the social costs to the United States of the increase in children born out of wedlock. Essentially, for Bauer, this was to be achieved by supporting marriage and the family. This, for him, was the answer to the problems.
He also made an interesting argument that the real misery and sorrow for people currently on welfare, particularly unwed mothers, was spiritual and moral deprivation, not poverty or material lack. He indicated that welfare itself had been destructive to women and children, and that its removal would allow them the same satisfactions as middle class suburbanite's of access to family, virtue, and freedom (Bauer, 1996, p. 6).
This, then, is one of the important conservative arguments, set forth by a representative of the conservative Family Research Council and bolstered by research from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Unfortunately, however, it also found support from liberals, or semi liberals, including President Clinton. In this argument, the issue of welfare is a moral one, but the morality under consideration is not the morality of poverty in a country of affluence, but the morality of providing unwed mothers with an absolute minimum subsistence grant. Apparently, the former is acceptable, while the latter is immoral.
Just how real the issue of poverty in America is...