The end of morality as we know it.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TOLD US THAT ALL OF THE people can be fooled some of the time, and that wise man was undoubtedly right about that as can be seen in this year of Our Lord 1996. All is a pretty inclusive word, but it appears, at least, that most of the American people are being fooled by recent legislation known as welfare reform.

The sponsors of this large-scale national legislation are triumphant because they are bipartisan--both Republicans and Democrats, Congress and the President have joined hands to produce it. But that its genesis was not partisan has not precluded its being a great hoax, a kind of Ponzi scheme that not only will not work but will find its way back to the legislative drawing board only after many Americans, mostly children, have been cruelly victimized.

This sad example of government by slogan-"two years and out," for example--offers sweat as an all purpose solution to a complex problem in a way that will inevitably drench the least fortunate among us with tears. And why was it necessary in the first place?

The conventional wisdom is that the present welfare system is broken beyond repair, but as is usually true with conventional wisdom, proof is lacking. Surely a federal program that began in the New Deal years of the 1930s has many flaws--some of which have been repaired along the way. Where, however, are the irreparable flaws?

Shoot-from-the-hip critics like to claim that the current system encourages dependency, sometimes spreading over several generations. That happens, of course, but where is the proof that this is the rule rather than the exception? Obviously, some welfare recipients would rather watch soap operas from their couches than work, but it is a canard that most do. Single mothers who stay home to care for their children are often lumped in this category, while those who do work or look for work are criticized for neglecting their children.

As columnist Bob Herbert has pointed out: "There is no welfare crisis in the United States, only welfare hysteria. Federal spending on the program most people refer to as welfare--Aid to Families with Dependent Children--amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget [and] in 1993 the average monthly check per family was $373."

And most significant, half of all AFDC recipients leave the program voluntarily in the first year; 75 percent within two years.

Nevertheless, say our government stewards in Washington, "Let them eat cake!" (or lobster and vodka, as one former president used to gain votes by alleging). They have, like Pilate, washed their hands and passed the buck to "the states," despite the fact that our national welfare system was devised because all too many states were doing an abysmal job of addressing the desperate poverty in which some of their citizens lived.

The states, it is argued, will do a better job of alleviating poverty within their borders because they "are closer to the problem." Perhaps. Perhaps not. And the block grants that the states are to receive are larded with gimmicks (20 percent of this, 10 percent of that), and anyone who thinks that "reform" will reduce bureaucracy and paperwork hasn't been paying attention.

MOST OF ALL, WHAT IF THE JOBS THAT ARE mandatory to "end welfare as we knew it" can't be found? How long will it take teenage mothers of several children to learn computer programming? And will grade-school dropouts ever be able to learn radiology? Will men trained only for manual labor, but no longer physically able for such work, be consigned to corrugated-box shelters in an underpass?

The saddest part of the whole discussion of the current and proposed welfare systems is how little morality seems to be a part of it. One would think that the matter being discussed is almost entirely mechanical--what doesn't work, what will work, how much, how many? And attempts to raise moral issues are considered intrusive.

No better example of this "who needs morality" response can be seen in a state whose proposed new welfare program is touted as a model for others and is praised by politicians of both parties. It is generally agreed that this proposal has much to recommend it, but . . .

Archbishop Rembert Weakland, O.S.B. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin sharply criticized his state's welfare program as lacking protection for the most vulnerable, especially children. As a shepherd of such people, the archbishop had every reason to speak as forcefully as he did. But the state's governor, Tommy Thompson, a Catholic, not only responded loudly in defense of his program, as was his right, but told the churchman in an especially crude and insulting way to mind his own business. And isn't it ironic that a prominent Catholic leader would claim that protecting the most vulnerable is not the business of a pastor?

But nobody said that life is fair, and controversy about matters such as our welfare system and its so-called reform is likely to be markedly and even personally nasty. As more than a few pundits have been noting, whatever happened to civility?