Founded in 1985 by strategist Al From, the DLC thought the bad image of liberalism in the 1980s was well-earned. From’s goal was results-based government activism that understood incentives drove behavior.

Rule No. 1 was that throwing money at problems didn’t have a great history after a quarter-century of Great Society domestic liberalism. If this wasn’t working to solve a problem, try another approach.

Rule No. 2 was to accept the idea that government-centric efforts to address societal issues were not always best — that even Americans who weren’t Reaganites had a skepticism about what government could accomplish, and for good reason.

The DLC approach — touted by such folks as Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and the then-very-powerful New Republic magazine — eventually got a tryout when Clinton was elected president in 1992 after an amazing Democratic primary without a single serious liberal candidate.

Clinton had his hard-left moments. But after 1994, he “triangulated” against liberal lawmakers over and over again, including going along with sweeping GOP welfare reform in 1996. And Clinton never gets nearly enough credit from non-wonks for how he successfully tinkered with the Earned Income Tax Credit in a way that helped the working poor without disincentivizing work.

The DLC way never made it to California

But in California, the pragmatic DLC approach has no such substantive record. Its principles won lip service from Gov. Gray Davis briefly after his 1998 election when he fought for education reforms. But then Davis lost his spine and sold his soul with a series of concessions to public employee unions, and since then the DLC theories that results matter most and that throwing money at problems isn’t always smart have been abandoned by nearly all elected California Democrats.

If we have parsimonious budgets, it’s because state legislators don’t have money to spare; it’s not because they don’t still want to throw money at problems and ignore history.

This dynamic has played out in education, where Clintonian programs to force teachers to meet standards have gone nowhere.

It’s also evident on welfare reform. As Chuck Devore has chronicled, California never got around to implementing the sort of tough, mandatory welfare changes that in most of America proved to be the greatest anti-poverty program in U.S. history.

And as we’re seeing now in San Diego, the DLC approach on affordable housing — which would value results first and foremost — is considered bizarre and exotic.

Failed policy? Let’s pump it full of new funds

I dealt with the insanity of what the San Diego City Council’s Democratic majority is doing in an editorial Sunday on the six months that Council President Todd Gloria served as interim mayor:

“During his time as mayor, he provided the fifth vote on the City Council for a gigantic public policy mistake.

“That mistake was to sharply increase the ‘linkage’ fees on commercial and industrial development projects in the name of promoting affordable housing. If the program that council Democrats were funding had a history of working well, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t. It has a 24-year history of minimal results at high cost.

“Doubling-down on an approach that isn’t working is in keeping with the Golden State’s obtuse history on affordable housing. As the Public Policy Institute of California noted in 2003, local governments have a history of focusing on process — adopting programs that show their good intentions — instead of results.”

This is insane. In this “Moneyball” era — in which statistical analysis is able to readily quantify what works and what doesn’t work — the second-largest city in California and the eighth-largest city in America has embraced a failed policy in a way that will hurt the city’s economy in direct and obvious ways.

Is Ron Burgundy running City Hall? Stay stupid, San Diego.

By Katy Grimes

It appears that Democrats aren’t really sincere or even serious about working toward solutions that will actually help California solve the economic crisis in the state. Last week, Democrats voted against a smart consolidation program which would have provided an additional $1.3 billion to the state.

After Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that California’s budget deficit has grown to nearly $16 billion, astoundingly higher than the $9 billion deficit amount announced in January, one would assume that every California politician would be looking under every rock for money to shore-up the debt.

Apparently politics trumps economic stability.

Welfare system maze

One way to cut government is consolidating redundant services. If politicians are looking for redundancy in state government, the biggest mess  is also the most obvious: California currently has four different systems which run Medi-Cal, CalWORKS, and Food Stamp programs. Every county has its own maze of welfare programs as well.

Last week during the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Health and Human Services hearing, Democrats moved to repeal the 2009 law directing the state to move towards a single, centralized system for Medi-Cal, CalWORKS, and Food Stamp programs.

In a 2010 report, the Legislative Analyst’s Office found “the new statewide process is intended to achieve two primary outcomes: (1) providing better service to people applying for these programs and (2) lowering administrative costs through better use of technology.”

Even with the LAO’s recommendation to consolidate, for efficiency, simplification, better record keeping, and cost savings, Democrats opposed consolidating the four state programs into one system – even with the $1.3 billion incentive from the Federal Government to do this.

With this opposition, Democrats have jeopardized much needed federal funds. This decision highlights the purely political problems involved in balancing our budget – government jobs and government spending, over efficiency and a slimmer state government.

In 2011 California applied for $1.3 billion in federal funding to streamline the four systems in the state’s largest welfare programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded in April that they were approving the funding request on the condition that California consolidate the welfare system.

But Democrats said “no.”

By ALI MEYER

Vacations subsidized by fraud. Welfare to those not meeting work demands. Welfare cards used to buy coffin nails and fire water.

After such outrages, one might think the California Department of Social Services would reform itself. Especially at a time when the state can’t pay its own bills. Nope.

California is the leading welfare provider in the United States. It pays for the largest number of welfare fraud cases — with little sign of reversal.  This wide-ranging fraud includes extracting welfare money from casinos and cruise ships, the failure of welfare recipients to meet work requirements, and filing false returns.  What a mess.

Reported the Orange County Register, “California is nearly twice as big as New York state, but we have five times as many welfare cases.  According to the Public Policy Institute of California, our state is one of the only nine that does not enforce the federal government’s five year lifetime limit on cash welfare assistance.  The monthly cash check is almost  70 percent higher than the national average.”

The prevalence of welfare fraud is disheartening.  Last year the Los Angeles Times broke the news that millions of dollars were withdrawn from welfare cards at destination hot spots across the country.  Jack Dolan wrote, “More than $69 million meant to help the needy pay their rent and clothe their children was accessed in 49 other states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam between January 2007 and May 2010, according to data from the California Department of Social Services.”  More than $11 million was blown in Las Vegas. No one knows if Elvis got some of that.

And another $16,010 was withdrawn from cruise ships to Long Beach, Rio de Janiero and Beijing. Let’s hope the buffets were worth it.

In response, Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered the deactivation of ATMs for welfare cards across the country at gambling venues and cruise ships. But it was a minor reform.

Shirking Work

Besides the gross misuse of welfare benefits, recipients are not meeting their expected work requirements.  Out of a sample of 310 welfare cases, only five individuals participated in activities that moved their family toward self-sufficiency, according to a California Department of Social Services’s study in March 2011.   Only 60 of the 310 cases participated in countable work activities.

While many welfare recipients are failing to pull their own weight, California Department of Public Social Services workers aren’t much better.  One worker, Trang Van Dinh, was found filing nearly 200 fraudulent tax returns, preying on those who were seeking help.   He used clients’ personal information to file false tax returns in 2009 and 2010.

After victims found their tax returns delayed, only then was attention brought to the case.  He pleaded guilty in February to two felony counts, which earned him 46 months in jail and $667,000 in restitution.

So what steps is California Department of Social Services taking to reverse the fraud?  On July 1, 2010, the CDSS provided a response to Schwarzenegger’s Executive Order S-09-10, in which they listed 10 proposals, including plans for early fraud prevention and funding.  Proposal six of the plan states that CDSS would dedicate funding to be used for anti-fraud activities to implement an Early Fraud Program. The program would allow county Special Investigation Units aiding in detecting withheld information.

Proposal eight would create a fraud investigative resource program within the existing Fraud Bureau, which would serve as the foundation for business intelligence needs on fraud prevention and investigations.

Proposal nine would enhance, expand and automate the Income Eligibility and Verification System, which would verify the accuracy of a clients identity and citizenship status and identify false social security information.

Proposal ten would implement a welfare fraud analytics system that would provide information that would help identify fraud in these benefit programs.

Investigations Decrease

With all of these initiatives to improve intelligence, common sense would suggest that more fraud investigations would be taking place.  Instead, the number of investigations has actually decreased.  In July 2010, when the proposals were written, 6,092 investigation requests were accepted for the Food Stamp program.

By January 2011, the investigation requests went down to 5,437.  The number of pending investigations for CalWorks and Food Stamps were 117,745 in July 2010.  Six months later, 23,103 more cases were pending at the end of the month.

Rather than increase the number of welfare fraud investigations, it appears as if the Department of Social Services has failed to use new fraud detection measures and ensure that the taxpayers’ dollars are not going to waste.

A final outrage is that welfare recipients are allowed to use their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards to buy booze and smokes. Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga proposed SB 417. It would have banned using the EBT cards to purchase  alcohol and tobacco products. It didn’t pass.

“You would think a simple common sense reform like trying to make sure taxpayer money is not used for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco would find bi-partisan support,” Dutton said.  “There definitely need to be reforms in this area.  Thirty-three percent of the budget is spent on health and human services.

“If we can’t stop welfare recipients from buying cigarettes and alcohol, we have a problem,” said David Wolfe the Legislative Director at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Of course, there is a way for welfare recipients to buy cigarettes and whisky: get jobs and pay for it themselves. But for now, the Democratic majority in the Legislature favors letting taxpayers pick up the party tab.