Welfare and 'Conditional Reciprocity'

From the pundit’s perspective, the best thing about Paul Ryan’s new proposals on poverty is the way they’ve surfaced some very interesting debates about the welfare state, debates that tend to go underground when anti-poverty spending is just being discussed in the context of the overall fiscal picture and the quest (or not) for a balanced budget. In particular, it’s been interesting to watch Ryan’s liberal critics train so much fire at his blueprint’s support (not as a universal requirement, as I understand it, but as a potential model for states to follow) for a contractual approach to anti-poverty spending, in which beneficiaries draw up customized life plans, set goals and targets, and have rewards and penalties pegged to their follow-through on those responsibilities. The liberal critiques of this idea, from writers like Annie Lowrey and Jamelle Bouie among many others, have been genuinely informative: I feel (sincerely!) like I have a better handle on the left-of-center view of poverty and anti-poverty policy than I did a week ago, and hopefully my future posts on the subject will profit from that advance in understanding.