The Government Accountability Office released Congressional testimony this week looking at Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. TANF, which replaced unrestricted welfare in 1996, has reduced welfare rolls and encouraged recipients to obtain work. Unfortunately, TANF’s goals have been undermined.

The GAO notes that “work participation rates … do not appear to be achieving the intended purpose of encouraging states to engage specified proportions of TANF adults in work activities.”

States are required to have at least 50 percent of eligible TANF recipients from single parent families participating in work activities. However, states are given various credits and exemptions that significantly reduce the number of recipients required to work. As a result, only about 30 percent of TANF recipients engage in “work activities,” which is often liberally defined. (This has been the case before and during the recession.)

Moreover, while TANF has successfully reduced the budgetary cost of cash-welfare, overall federal spending on anti-poverty programs has increased dramatically. According to a chart from Brian Riedl, anti-poverty spending has increased an inflation-adjusted 89 percent over the present decade:

I previously discussed how TANF enrollment has dropped since its passage in 1996 while food stamp enrollment has greatly increased. A food stamp user interviewed by the New York Times indicates one reason for the trend:

‘It used to be easier to go on cash assistance,’ she said as she left a food stamp office in Brooklyn this month. ‘You didn’t have to go to work, you didn’t have to report every day to an office and sign in and sign out. Now, if you don’t go to those group job meetings in the mornings, they shut down your whole welfare case. So that’s why I just get food stamps.’

Not surprisingly, the cost of the food stamps program has gone through the roof:

The desirability of federal anti-poverty programs in the midst of difficult economic times is a sensitive topic. However, with so many Americans currently in need of assistance, now is actually a good time to discuss the role of government in taking care of the less fortunate. As a Cato essay on welfare and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families argues, the federal government isn’t the best option.

Rising Welfare Costs is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

According to sources within HHS cited by Heritages’ Dan Lips, a congressionally mandated report on the persistence of academic effects from the federal Head Start program was completed in draft form in 2008, but, nearly two years later, has not seen the light of day. A further follow-up report, to have been released in 2009 and covering persistence of effects through the 3rd grade, has also failed to materialized. Lips’ sources say the draft they saw in ’08 showed no lasting effects.

This timeline meshes with what I was told in a July, 2008 e-mail exchange with a researcher familiar with the studies. The 1st grade report was indeed expected to be completed that summer — one and a half years ago. So where is it?

Could it be, as Lips’ sources seem to imply, that its results were not flattering to the very expensive federal preschool program and that this is not something HHS officials want the public to know? There’s one way to find out:  HHS, release the studies.

This is all rather important, what with the Obama administration seeking to lavish many additional billions on large-scale government pre-K, despite the paucity of results we’ve seen from such programs to date.

Has HHS Buried Reports on ‘Head Start’? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• How Washington’s plans may result in even higher executive pay.
  “In 1993, Congress intervened in corporate compensation and messed things up. Now it’s the White House’s turn.”

• The case for allowing insider trading: “Want to keep companies honest, make the markets work more efficiently and encourage investors to diversify? Let insiders buy and sell.”

• Cato v. Heritage on the Patriot Act, Round III: “In hindsight, did Congress and the president react too hastily in 2001 by passing the Patriot Act just weeks after the 9/11 attacks?”

• Instead of fixing the Patriot Act, President Obama is protecting it.

• Twenty years later: Why the Berlin Wall fell.

• Podcast: “Financial Privacy and Freedom” featuring Prince Michael of Liechtenstein.

Wednesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Cato v. Heritage on the Patriot Act, Round II. Today’s topic: “Where are the demonstrated examples of abuses of liberties because of the Patriot Act? Are there any provisions of the law that civil libertarians would find acceptable?”

• Comparing the Great Depression to the current recession: Did we not learn anything?

• Re-examining the U.S. alliance with Japan: “The current relationship remains trapped in a world that no longer exists.”

• The human cost of delayed economic reform in India: “With earlier reform, 14.5 million more children would have survived, 261 million more Indians would have become literate, and 109 million more people would have risen above the poverty line.”

• How the free market can save health care.

• Podcast: What we should have learned from our experience in Somalia. Background reading: Somalia, Redux: A More Hands-Off Approach

Weekend Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• A few things to consider before comparing Vietnam to Afghanistan.

• Cato v. Heritage on the Patriot Act.

• When it comes to energy policy, most conservatives toss free-market ideas aside.

• When your only choice is to “be a good victim”: Man shoots two people to death in San Francisco while police stand by.

• Podcast: “Could the Fed Have Foreseen Our Financial Fiasco?“

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Here’s your weekly round up of bloggers who are writing about Cato research, analysis and commentary:

• United Liberty editor Jason Pye discusses Cato’s new site, DownsizingGovernment.org.
• Scott Hinrichs quotes Cato senior fellow Tom Palmer in a post on the relationship between governments and the people.
• Below the Beltway‘s Doug Mataconis and Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent post Cato’s new video on the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
• At the Real Clear World Compass Blog, Greg Scoblete quotes Justin Logan on Afghanistan.
• Harry Waisbren of Get Fisa Right and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald discuss Julian Sanchez’s video on Fox’s coverage of the Patriot Act.
• Heritage’s Gerrit Lansing interviews David Goldhill during a Cato Hill Briefing, “How American Health Care Killed My Father.“

Click here to let us know if you’re blogging about Cato.

Who’s Blogging about Cato is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog