In twenty years, social welfare policy in America has passed from soaring confidence to doubt and retrenchment. There has also been a lot of partisan bickering and ideological warfare. The time has come to rise above this partisanship and to tackle our problems head-on. If all the recommendations in this report were implemented, the annual increase in government costs would be about $29 billion. This includes the recommendations for children involving Head Start, wic, and Medicaid expansion; more funding for drug treatment; the minimum welfare benefit requirement; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit; new job-training outlays; a public-sector jobs program; and a package of increases to help senior citizens. About one-third of this amount would be allocated to raising ssi benefits and introducing a modest long-term-care program. Since it would be possible to phase in both these new initiatives over time, we could make great progress toward the goals developed in this report with new government outlays in the range of $10 billion to $15 billion per year, phased in during the 1989-92 period and allowing time for our other recommendations to be phased in over a period of several years.

One caveat should be noted. These cost figures are our best estimates of the initial cost to the Federal government when the new initiatives are fully phased in. We have seen a number of instances in which such initial projections turned out to underestimate the eventual cost of the effort. Some factors that inflate costs, such as poor management, are within our control. Others—such as the increased demand for social services that arises when new government coverage draws additional people into a social program—are more difficult to control. What we have done in this report is to make as accurate an estimate as possible of the initial cost of the social investments we propose.

Financing Mechanisms

It is reasonable and fair to ask that those who are financially able help share the cost of social reform. The best way to do that would be to tax Social Security benefits