The One Thing We Can All Agree On: Welfare Reform Worked

by Dave Blount | August 25, 2016 3:38 pm

Even liberal-leaning USA Today admits that welfare reform worked:

Twenty years ago, a Democratic president and a Republican Congress replaced a welfare system that fostered dependence with one that encouraged work. The reform was wildly successful for a few years and has struggled since then. But as a model of bipartisan cooperation, it deserves continued support.

The controversial plan to “end welfare as we know it,” enacted by a re-election-conscious President Clinton and the first Congress led by Republicans in 40 years, did away with six decades of guaranteed federal aid for the poor. Three Clinton administration officials quit their jobs in protest.

Modeled on state pilot programs, the law prodded welfare recipients into the workplace with a series of carrots and sticks: Work, and you got help with child care, job training, transportation. Wait, and you risked sanctions and time limits.

It worked, at least for a while.

First, the law increased employment rates for single women, particularly mothers who had never married. That tough-love approach proved just the incentive many needed to escape the cycle of poverty perpetuated by the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

This progress was stopped in its tracks when Obama illegally threw out the work requirement by Executive Branch decree.

Why would someone want to destroy a policy that was indisputably reducing poverty? Because those who don’t work for a living, vote for a living.

Unfortunately, despite the national debt skyrocketing past $19 trillion, it will be at least another 4 years before we have a president willing to get us back on the right track, as both Shrillary and The Donald are uncritical advocates of a bloated entitlement state.

money-down-drain
Instead of reform we get more of this.

On a tip from Bodhisattva. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/welfare/one-thing-can-agree-welfare-reform-worked/