Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:00:48.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Congress and the Welfare State

Some Historical Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

James T. Patterson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Thanks in part to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the popular reputation of Congress has recently plum meted to perhaps an all-time low.As the Senate deliberated in late January 1999, Jay Leno captured what seemed to be widespread disgust with Capitol Hill. He cracked, “We’ve reached a point where Congress does not affect anyone’s life, so we look at it as entertainment. It’s like the Jerry Springer show, except everyone has a law degree. They can’t fix health care, they can’t fix Social Security, so we look at them to provide a few laughs on a daily basis” (Providence Journal 1999).

Leno’s wisecrack adds to a long history of jokes and laments about Congress, which throughout this century has taken far more hits from the public than has the executive branch. To listen only briefly to such criticism is to hear that Congress is inefficient, unresponsive, obstructionist, irresponsible, and undemocratic in its operations. Most often we are told that Congress suffers from two related weaknesses: it rolls over to please powerful interest groups, and it cravenly dreads reprisal from constituents.

Type
Roundtable: The U.S. Congress in the Twentieth Century
Information
Social Science History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , summer 2000 , pp. 367 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2000 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altschuler, Glenn (1994) “Legislation and social welfare policy,” in Silbey, Joel (ed.) Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System, 3 vols. New York: Scribner’s.Google Scholar
Amenta, Edwin (1998) Bold Relief: Institutional Relief and the Origins of Modern American Social Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Beito, David (1989) Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Edward (1991) America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Edward (1995) Mr. Social Security: The Life of Wilbur J. Cohen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Brady, David and Volden, Craig (1998) Revolving Gridlock: Politics and Policy from Carter to Clinton. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Bumpers, Dale (1999) “How the sunshine harmed Congress.” New York Times, January 3.Google Scholar
Burke, Vincent and Burke, Dee (1974) Nixon’s Good Deed: Welfare Reform. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Gareth and Derthick, Martha (1997) “Race and social welfare policy: The Social Security Act of 1935.” Political Science Quarterly 112(summer): 217–35.Google Scholar
Derthick, Martha (1979) Policymaking for Social Security. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Skocpol, Theda (eds.) (1983) Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Flora, Peter et al. (eds.) (1998) The State of Social Welfare, 1997: International Studies on Social Insurance and Retirement, Employment, Family Policy, and Health Care. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Fox Piven, Frances and Cloward, Richard (1993) Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, updated edition. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin (1997) “Why no national health insurance in the United States? The limits of social provision in war and peace, 1941-1948.” Journal of Policy History 9(3): 277–310.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda (1994) Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890-1935. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob and Skocpol, Theda (1997) “The new politics of U.S. health policy.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 22(April): 315–38.Google Scholar
Heidenheimer, Arnold and Heclo, Hugh (1983)Comparative Public Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in Europe and America. New York: St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
Karl, Barry (1983) The Uneasy State: The United States from 1915 to 1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Morton (1995) “History of Congress,” in Bacon, Don Davidson, Roger and Keller, Morton (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress, Vol.2. New York: Simon and Schuster: 967–1046.Google Scholar
Kennedy, David (1999) Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Robert (1998) Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas and Ornstein, Norman (eds.) (1995) Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Marmor, Theodore (1970) The Politics of Medicare. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Marmor, Theodore and Rein, Martin (1973) “Reforming ‘the welfare mess’: The fate of the family assistance plan, 1969-1972,” in Sindler, Allan (ed.) Policy and Politics in America. Boston: Little, Brown: 2–29.Google Scholar
Morone, James (1990) The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Alice (1998) “The false dawn of poor law reform: Nixon, Carter, and the quest for a guaranteed income.” Journal of Policy History 10(1): 99 –129.Google Scholar
Patterson, James T. (1995) America’s Struggle against Poverty, 1900-1994. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Mark (1993) “Political influence in the 1990s: From iron triangles to policy networks.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 18(summer): 395–438.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson (1984) Political Innovation in America: The Politics of Policy Initiation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Providence Journal (1999) January 27.Google Scholar
Quadagno, Jill (1994) The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sundquist, James (1968) Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Sundquist, James (1981) The Decline and Resurgence of Congress. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Waddan, Alex (1998) “A liberal in wolf’s clothing: Nixon’s family assistance plan in the light of 1990s welfare reform.” Journal of American Studies 32 (August): 203–18.Google Scholar
Weir, Margaret (1995) “Social welfare and poverty,” in Bacon, Don, Davidson, Roger, and Keller, Morton (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. Vol. 4, 1841–1852. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian (1998) Taxing America: Wilbur Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945-1975. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar