Policy Review articles from March 1996

Policy Review archives from March 1996

Charities on the dole.
March 1, 1996... Those who expect America's charities to replace government as a provider of social welfare ought to look a little closer. They will find that the so-called independent sector, which receives between one-quarter and one-third of its funds from...

Taking the byte out of disability.
March 1, 1996... While cleaning up the hard disk on my computer recently, I came across an accessory that I had never noticed before called "Text to Speech."discovered that my relatively low-end computer could convert standard text files into speech. It can read...

A cop next door. (police home loan program in Columbia, SC)
March 1, 1996... In 1991, the police department in Columbia, South Carolina, began offering low-interest mortgage loans to any officer willing to live in a high-crime or deteriorating neighborhood. One rundown house whose street address was 911 caught the...

In the trenches of a city's war on poverty. (CityTeam Ministries of San Jose, CA)
March 1, 1996... For Marcia, release from a California prison was both a blessing and a curse: She suddenly had to figure out how to care for herself and her infant son. An abuser of heroin and cocaine for more than 20 years, she had few job skills or prospects....

Marriage menders.
March 1, 1996... A report last year by the Council on Families in America characterized America's culture of divorce this way: "Relationships between men and women are not getting better; by many measures, they are getting worse. They are becoming more difficult,...

Big-government junkies.
March 1, 1996... The great budget debate between President Clinton and Congress is about more than the level of federal spending and taxes. The fundamental conflict is over the responsibility for addressing America's great social crises. President Clinton wants...

A new contract with America.
March 1, 1996... "I love my nation but I fear my government."and I had to wonder: Was this not the same government that had mobilized the nation to win World War II, that had defeated communism, that had built the interstate highway system? What had gone so...

"I have a dream": ideas for rebuilding American culture.
March 1, 1996... America is entering a great age of social entrepreneurship, rivaling the private organizational creativity of 100 years ago. The mid- to-late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the creation of the Red Cross, the Scouts movement, the Carnegie...

No more home alone. (group homes for teen-age mothers)
March 1, 1996... Sociologist James Q. Wilson proposes that unmarried, pregnant girls live in some type of supervised, privately run group home as a condition of receiving government benefits. This, he argues, would help provide the social structure that young...

The diceman cometh: will gambling be a bad bet for your town? (includes related articles on gambling-related criminal activity and community efforts to stop casinos)
March 1, 1996... Flush with a handful of money he had just won at a bowling tournament, Joe Koslowski invited some friends to celebrate with him at the nearby Atlantic City casinos. Joe, then 16, and all his buddies were allowed in despite the age limit of 21....

The right way to replace welfare. (excerpt from 'Renewing American Compassion')
March 1, 1996... Over the past few decades, government welfare programs have been designed to lift the burden of caring for the poor from ordinary people, by allowing them to write a check to pay the professionals who would solve problems. It is time for...

Raising the bar: minority pupils excel the old-fashioned way.
March 1, 1996... In the great debate about affirmative action that is about to begin, opponents of racial quotas and preferences must be prepared to offer a better way of opening opportunity for racial groups that have historically been victims of...

Church without state. (19th Century minister Lyman Beecher)
March 1, 1996... When Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States in 1831, he was struck by how Americans were "forever forming associations."for help, public-spirited citizens sought to solve societal problems on their own. Tocqueville may not have...