The Foundry at Heritage.org posted an article today about President Clinton’s remarks in his speech last night that President Obama has not gutted the work requirements passed in the Welfare Reform Act during the Clinton Administration.
The article reminds us:
Last night, in his nationally televised speech, former President Bill Clinton said the charge that President Obama has gutted welfare reform was “a real doozy.”
The Heritage Foundation pointed out some basic facts that contradict this statement.
The article quotes Robert Rector, who helped write the 1996 law:
The Obama Administration will put in mothballs the formal purpose of welfare reform—to reduce the number of people dependent on government benefits. The Administration will abandon the legislative performance goal that encourages states to reduce welfare caseloads. It will weaken the “work participation” standards that require some 30 percent of able-bodied Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients to engage in work activities for 20 to 30 hours per week.
The changes that the Obama Administration has made to welfare reform will create more dependency–not encourage people to find work and contribute to society rather than take from it.
Mr. Rector further explains:
In the typical state, 1.5 percent of the TANF caseload leaves welfare and obtains work each month. Thus, any state can be fully exempted from the TANF work requirements if it raises the number of exits to 1.8 percent. This is a miniscule change. What will the other 98.2 percent of the caseload be doing? No one knows for sure. But one thing we do know for certain: They will be exempt from the federal “work participation” requirements established in the welfare reform law.
I realize this may seem a little trivial, but it is not–for two reasons. First of all, the change in the law encourages dependency on the government–never a good thing, and second of all, it is obvious that President Clinton was lying. It is also obvious that the mainstream media is not going to report that President Clinton was lying.
It is truly time for a housecleaning in Washington. At the same time we initiate housecleaning, we need to impose term limits, end retirement pay for Congressmen (put them under Social Security or other programs they have to contribute to), and refuse to pay Congress if they do not pass a budget. These ideas may seem a little drastic, but these are drastic times.
