Program operations: The programs which emerge as a result of the new federal welfare laws are studied.

To identify- out of experience, research, and analysis- the opportunities offered by whatever new flexibility has evolved.

To identify, from the same sources, potential administrative, programmatic, and budgetary strategies for undoing or coping with the problems which will have been created, whether by Legislative or Executive branch actions.

• The well-being of children and their families is a proper (we would say the proper) yardstick in considering implementation of PRWORA. However, since the reforms had only a limited research base and since there are participants in the debate who began with diverse value perspectives, the application of this yardstick is not always clear cut.
• As there was the legislative intent, the main locus of action will be the states. There are no serious proposals challenging the "devolution." It is therefore important to clarify the leverage, the resources, and the opportunities available to the states. If the reforms are to "pay off" it will be through state creativity.
• Our orientation remains nonpartisan, both because this follows from our funding source and because the distribution of political power and prerogatives at both the federalism and the state levels I such that optimum results require initiatives within both major parties and a maximum of bipartisan cooperation.
• Inevitably, legislation and broad-ranging and complex as PWRORA will have created problems and difficulties for the state and for program participants…Where we stress the need to focus on the opportunities for creative state initiatives resulting from the devolution, we cannot ignore the problems and obstacles created for the state and their residents.
• Whatever the president's expression of interest in some corrections, it is unlikely that the Congress will support major changes.
• The end of an entitlement to assistance, the greater flexibility for the states, and the revised prerogatives and responsibilities of the DHHS leave serious vacuums with regard to information about problems in implementing the new law and with regard to national trends, program impacts, innovation and experiments, and technical assistance. It is in the nature of the reform that the country must now count upon intergovernmental organizations, professional associations, and major research centers, leading states and their governors and commissioners to fill these gaps and offer new types of leadership.
• Finally... there is need for a more realistic assessment of the roles of the major voluntary sectarian and nonsectarian nonprofit social service organizations.

"Reducing benefit levels below recent AFDC levels (which have already been significantly reduced over the last two decades) is clearly not in the best interests of children"(p26).

"We hope that states will avoid contradictory policy initiatives. Despite the commitment to marriage and two-parent families, the new law permits states to opt out of the 1988 reform requiring that AFDC-UP (unemployed parent) be offered" (p26).

"There is potential danger in contracting with for-profit organizations for welfare eligibility determination" (p26).

"Many TANF recipients have limited skills, face a tough job market, and will need to re-orient family routines substantially; they should be helped- and that will take time"(p27).

"A ‘family cap,’ another state option (a ‘new’ child, conceived while the family receives welfare aid, is not added to the budget) could serve only to harm children dependent on public aid, and gives no promise of accomplishing its announced objective of discouraging out-of-wedlock parenting"(p27).

"States should sustain the child support ‘bonus’ that existed under AFDC out of their own resources if necessary"(p27).

"States should avoid diverting federal funds from the cash assistance and work programs, and thus undercutting TANF" (p28).

"States need to build their own rainy day fund and should use some of their windfall funds to do this"(p28).

"States need to pay special attention to their cities"(p28).

"States need to monitor closely the path between TANF and SSI, on the one hand, and child welfare, on the other"(p29).

"States need to develop clear goals regarding what they expect their new plans to accomplish, and then collect the data that will permit them to assess whether they have achieved these goals"(p29).