Confessions of a Wayward Academic

by Tom Corbett

  Administrations may have changed with Clinton replacing Bush (the elder) as president, but overall Washington remained the same. You can change the fish in the pond, but the water remains murky. We looked at ways in which the rules, definitions, and administrative protocols across systems might be synchronized to minimize conflict and inefficiencies. While individual executive agency officials paid lip service to the problem and gave tepid support for seeking a solution, it was impossible to generate any sense of urgency to make the necessary changes.

  The same barriers were raised again and again. There really was a rationale behind their unique program definition or protocol or rule and, by default, their rationale was better than that of the other guys. Or the costs of change would be prohibitive. Or maybe it was the other program that ought to accommodate them, since they were doing God’s work while they had no idea what those other folks were doing. Or it would have to go back to a Congressional Committee for approval and, of course, that was impossible. And if all else failed to be persuasive, God would strike them dead if they changed anything.

  While some action would be forthcoming if the president knocked heads across the executive agencies, the goal of administrative efficiency was a back-burner issue compared to the flame-bright controversies surrounding “ending welfare as we know it,” or the conflagrations that inevitably popped up in the Middle-East. Though this topic had a separate section in the language of the Bill submitted to Congress, I thought the language lacked sufficient fire and zeal to accomplish anything. Besides, the bill proposing Bill’s reform vision, as we know from the prior chapter, died a quick death.

  The program integration section laid out the rationale for collaboration, gave examples of what might be done, and called for mechanisms through which future progress might be made. The language reminded me of the pious statements in my Catholic catechism as a young man; nice to live one’s life that way, but rather impossible to inform behavior in the real world, at least for weak people like me. It seemed we were pushing too many tough decisions down the road, hoping that the bureaucracy might be seized by a paroxysm of reason and rationality. It was probably all we could do.

  I am proud of one thing, I think. I must admit that some of my rhetoric made it into the final version of the bill. Nothing, however, topped my introduction to the program coordination section where I called this vision the “holy grail of public policy, ever sought but seldom achieved.” Now, I had no reservation about using such colorful language. I knew that early drafts would go through several layers of review, both for substantive accuracy and political acceptability. I assumed that this language would be excised or changed as being too flowery. This holy grail language survived, however, to my surprise and delight.

  When I left ASPE to return to the university in June 1994, they had a nice party for me. It was rather special, in fact. I am guessing they were afraid that I would change my mind and stay. It might be harder to do that after a nice going-away party. One of the many gifts I received was a simulated goblet covered in golden tin foil to represent the holy grail. I was moved to tears and henceforth became attached to this metaphor to designate any effort to enhance collaboration across programs or agencies.

  Like one of those teen horror movie sagas where the monster is killed time and time again only to be resurrected to dissect just a few more coeds, the service integration agenda would not die. The next resurrection, for me at least, took place within the discussions of the WELPAN Network. WELPAN is a topic I discuss in the next chapter and will save the detail for then. In brief, this Midwest network (there were related groups in other regions) was a group of senior state welfare officials from seven states located in the Great Lakes section of the country. I organized the group right around the time that national welfare reform passed. It subsequently met on a quarterly basis for over a decade, during which the welfare reform drama played out. The dialogue among this group was like having a front row seat in welfare wars.

  In any case, the participating state officials bonded over time. After all, whether they shared a common perspective or not, they faced similar challenges. As they became comfortable, they began to push the envelope of change. In part this reflected a unique aspect of the network. The venue gave them a chance to get away from day-to-day responsibilities. It gave them an opportunity to think, to expand their vision, to create a vision in concert with their peers. They realized, maybe with small nudges from me and some of the resource people we brought in, that reform demanded that they think beyond their own programs. Upon reflection, they did not need much nudging at all. They had long been aware of these issues.

  These welfare officials realized all too well that they were no longer in the check-issuing business. They were now in the people-changing business. At a minimum, that required a more professional, less automated approach to their clients. They intuitively knew that simple solutions would not suffice given the knotty problems that many vulnerable families encountered. Most likely, real solutions would demand that they identify and adopt multifaceted service strategies that cut across several service systems simultaneously.

  Members of the network divided up substantive policy areas among themselves to explore this notion of collaboration in detail. For example, how would they better integrate workforce programs and welfare, child welfare and welfare, housing and welfare? Each of their separate working papers was discussed among the group members. From these discussions, there emerged a greater appreciation for how central to future reform was a systemic rethinking of the way they functioned. It was time to rebuild things from the ground up. In 1999, they tentatively broached the integration topic by publishing a piece on how the different cultures of the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) and the Food Stamp program (now SNAP) worked against one another at the operational level. The cultures in these two programs clashed rather violently.

  Then, they went on offense, shifting from critiques of what was to a visualization of what might be. Over the next several years, the WELPAN network published two major papers—The New Face of Welfare in 2000 and Recreating Social Assistance: How to use Waiver Authority to Eliminate Program Silos in 2002. The first work laid out the transformative changes that they thought welfare was undergoing. It had moved from a bureaucratic function, where complex but routine tasks were repetitively carried out, to a vision that could only be achieved through coordinated multiservice interventions delivered over time. Everything was different in this new world, even if most people didn’t see it.

  This second WELPAN paper argued that states ought to be given additional flexibility to create that new world of social assistance. In a narrow sense, it was an argument in favor of the Super Waiver provision that President George W. Bush had inserted into the TANF reauthorization proposal. This provision would permit broad waivers of federal regulations across several executive agencies at the same time. Mechanisms would be set up to move requested waivers along, theoretically removing the bureaucratic sclerosis that impeded innovation. This would sweep aside the kinds of barriers that thwarted the kinds of integration agendas articulated in the Employment Commission report and the Clinton welfare reform effort. More importantly, it would locate the center of gravity for integration among the states and local communities, where innovation was more likely to occur.

  Alas, as with all welfare proposals of the 1990s, the Super Waiver proposal met with a severe backlash from liberals. The essence of the counter argument went as follows. The federal government is the final protector of the poor. If we take away those protections and let states do what they wish, the poor will be left vulnerable to the whims of state and local jurisdictions. Liberals kept reminding anyone who would listen about what happened to many poor people before the courts and the federal government took an activist role in the 1960s. African-American families almost never received benefits in many Southern states, irrespective of eligibility. The states argued that things had changed but reservations on that score remaine
d.

  Defenders of the Super Waiver argued that times had changed. In addition, defenders would point out that states were brimming with new ideas for attacking poverty. The federal government could never muster such motivation and purpose. It was time to let the states loose to become the laboratories of democracy that many envisioned they could be and that Justice Brandeis had touted perhaps a century earlier.

  One last WELPAN vignette on the Super Waiver issue deserves mention. The typical WELPAN meeting would be in Chicago though we circulated around participating state capitols from time to time. During the height of the waiver dialogue, we decided to have a meeting in Washington. The WELPAN members were unanimous in their support of this additional flexibility and dismissed arguments that increased state flexibility would be used to disadvantage poor families. Of course, these were states with reputations for generally good government. Nevertheless, these state officials wanted to bring their arguments for more flexibility directly to the lion’s den.

  During an earlier meeting, Joel Rabb (from Ohio) mused that, “We (the states) needed a more liberal waiver authority, not necessarily to overcome federal impediments to innovation, but rather to overcome resistance within our own states. Too often, my colleagues from other state agencies would tell me that they would love to work with us, but federal rules prevented it. Now, I would be able to look them in the eye and say that there is no reason for not moving ahead. Now we can get a waiver of those stupid rules.”

  Anyways, we arranged for a meeting in D.C. where the group met with Congressional staff, with key movers and shakers, and with executive agency officials. There were some moments of drama. A key Democratic Hill staffer said no way would the Democrats agree to the waiver provision. That precipitated a spirited push back from the WELPAN members. Though a majority of the WELPAN members probably were Democrats or leaned toward liberal positions, they argued back forcefully in a unified voice. They needed the flexibility to design and deliver better, more coherent services to their clients.

  Of course, the WELPAN arguments were to no avail. When ideological lines are set, not even acts of God can move them. What we witnessed was a mini-lesson in the creeping partisan paralysis that consumes Washington to this day. The anger among network members was palpable. They felt disrespected, that they were not worthy of trust. Most were long-time civil servants who had worked diligently on behalf of the people they served. Now, they were implicitly being told that the federal government was there to protect the public from their evil ways. I could see the steam rising from their ears. On that note, it is time to shift away from WELPAN, but I assure you we will return to their endeavors again. Stay with me as I take the thread of this narrative in a slightly different direction, though I do stay with the Super Waiver debate.

  I first introduced Jennifer Noyes way back in the preface. She was Governor Tommy Thompson’s policy advisor and welfare chief, who endured stories of my life on that interminable travel debacle from Madison to D.C. Though she barely survived my forced companionship on that first trip, she kept coming back for more. Funny, during my dating days, women inevitably fled after one evening with me. In any case, we became good colleagues and even friends though my socialist ways and never-ending witticisms often put her good will toward me to the test. Eventually, I convinced her to join us at the institute where eventually she held my old position as associate director. Recently, she assumed a position as an associate dean in the College of Letters and Sciences.

  When Jennifer walks into the room, people notice; men do, at least. She is tall, blond, with classically cut facial features and a pert nose. When we first travelled together, she always complained about being picked out of the airport queue for the random special screening they did in those days. Why always her, she groused. “Hey,” I responded, “some bored security guy sees a tall stunning blond in line followed by an old, slightly overweight, balding schmuck. What do you think he is going to say? ‘Hey, I’m picking the fat old guy to spend the next few minutes of my boring life with.’ I don’t think so!”

  Beyond that, Jennifer was whip smart, quick of speech, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of federal-state programs. She had been valedictorian of everything in school and often was the smartest person in the room, unless I also was in that room. Now, I always had a penchant for hanging with the smartest gals I could find, like Carol Simon from my college days whom I introduced while reviewing my near-death experiences. As I recall, Carol was ranked first academically at my alma mater (it damn well was not me), got her advanced degree from Harvard, and became a college dean later in her academic career.

  I sat down one day and realized that all my high school and college girlfriends (the serious ones, at least) went on for doctorates. My long-suffering spouse has a law degree. What I could never figure out is why these extremely smart women hung out with the likes of me. As far as I can tell, any academic success I enjoyed is attributable to charm, wit, and a heavy dose of Irish blarney. Apparently, it is true that there really is no accounting for taste. But Jennifer has put up with me as a professional colleague over the years, and we did form a very good working relationship.

  Her only fault, besides having an abominable sense of judgment in selecting professional colleagues, was that she is a Republican. Normally I would feel the need to disinfect myself after any extended interaction with a member of said species. But I concluded long ago that Jennifer is not really a Republican, though she heartily disagrees with me on that point. In my view, she cares too much about good public policy, and about people, to be considered a member of the dark side. Recently, she has confessed to me that she finds positions staked out by today’s Republican party quite objectionable. On the other hand, whenever we shake hands she always whips out those disinfecting wipes to thoroughly cleanse her own hands. I wonder why? I should ask her about that.

  One of our first collaborations, ironically, was on the topic of collaboration, more specifically the Super Waiver debate. While I had been touching on the integration agenda for over a decade, I now took it on with focus and more energy. It probably helped that I now had a smart collaborator with whom to work on the knotty challenge of collaboration.

  For me, at least, the Super Waiver issue was an awkward starting point for this renewed effort. I am not unsympathetic to liberal concerns about eroding federal protections of vulnerable populations. The political appetite for providing help to the poor and struggling is not evenly distributed across states. Furthermore, when benefits and services evidence distributional abnormalities across jurisdictions, the specter of welfare-induced migration will push more generous states to cut back on benefits, or at least to seriously think about it. In short, local control may spur innovation and advancement, or it may spawn an inexorable race to the bottom. In advance, it may not be possible to predict which will prevail. Such are the difficult choices faced by policy wonks.

  Earlier, I explained the origins of the phrase the “holy grail of public policy.” Service integration certainly meets the definition of a “wicked” policy problem. By way of review for other old-timers like me with short memories, a wicked policy challenge is one where our ends are not well defined, contention exists around supporting theory, the means for achieving ends are a matter of debate, evidence upon which to decide outstanding questions does not exist or is ambiguous, and normative or partisan contention renders productive communication very difficult. These are the fun issues, though they do lead to premature baldness, insomnia, and hypertension…all of which afflict me.

  Not surprisingly, we have been pursuing this “grail”’ for a long time without resolving the challenge. The struggle for a coherent, rational, and individualized service system goes back to at least the post-Civil War period. Rising industrialization, urbanization, and immigration from southern and eastern European countries (plus the dreaded Irish) led to extreme poverty and social exclusion in urban areas. A deficiency of resources attributable to the individual was defined as pauperism, a term on
e no longer hears. Paupers were those individuals whose deficient character and moral flaws led to a life of turpitude and indolence. Drunkenness, sloth, and aggressiveness were viewed as the prevailing disposition of the worst of these, usually my Celtic ancestors. This might explain a lot about me except for latent aggression, which my dominant trait of abject cowardice does not permit me to display.

  Except for Civil War pensions, all public aid was local and often the concern of private charities. These charities abounded with little coordination or supervision. In response, two reform movements swept the Eastern seaboard at least. The Scientific Charity movement tried to professionalize the work of volunteers who went into the homes of the destitute, ultimately leading to the first School of Social Work at Columbia University in 1898. The Charity Organization Society movement, on the other hand, attempted to rationalize the provision of assistance by improving the level of communication and coordination across local providers of help. The fear was that some were abusing the system while the neediest could fall through the cracks. I made the mistake of serving on a social policy panel at Columbia’s centennial anniversary in 1998. That was fine, but they subsequently assumed I was an alumnus and, for years, kept dunning me for contributions. I think their pleas for money only ceased when they wrongly assumed I had passed on to my heavenly reward.

  Periodically, over the coming decades, there were efforts to better coordinate services and charities, particularly the raising of money, through community chests and the emergence of the United Way. With the advent of the New Deal in the 1930s, however, public aid initiatives proliferated in an alphabet soup of new programs and agencies. By the 1960s, there were further calls for redesigning assistance programs along more rational lines. The Model Cities program was part of the WOP. It was an attempt to coordinate a host of services at the community level. Block Grants were introduced to combine funding streams, thereby reducing separate federal funding and regulatory silos. But the Block Grants were viewed by many as a transparent way to reduce overall federal support and became controversial.