Obama’s Attack on ‘Workfare’

The Heritage Foundation ^ | August 8, 2012 | Robert Rector

[LucianOfSamasota]

President Obama has created a firestorm by overturning the work requirements of the popular 1996 welfare-reform law. Now his White House is bristling because Mitt Romney dares to point out that fact on the stump and in a new campaign ad.

Obama’s move is only the latest step in a long history of liberal opposition to work requirements. The Left blocked welfare-reform efforts under both Presidents Nixon and Reagan, for example.

In 1996, a Republican Congress drafted a welfare-reform law — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) — that for the first time established meaningful work standards for welfare recipients. President Clinton reluctantly signed this legislation.

Ever since, Democratic leaders have attempted — unsuccessfully — to repeal welfare’s work standards, blocking reauthorization of TANF and attempting to weaken the requirements.

Unable to eliminate “workfare” legislatively, the Left now acts contrary to the law and employs a bureaucratic maneuver to gut the work requirements. The Obama administration claims authority to grant waivers that allow states to skirt these requirements.

This hostility to workfare is deeply at odds with the public’s view. A recent Rasmussen survey reveals that 83 percent of adults favor work requirements. Only 7 percent oppose them.

Recognizing such strong support for work requirements, liberals historically used camouflage tactics: They publicly praised workfare while seeking to murder it behind the scenes. The Obama administration has adopted this “talk right, govern left” strategy.

Humorously, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius even asserts that the administration abolished the TANF work requirements in order to increase work.

This is false.

[LucianOfSamasota]

They really don't know how value is created. It comes from never working a real job.

[Doctor 2Brains]

for later

[CaptainAmiigaf]

To the LEFTIES, “WORK” is a 4 letter word that ends in “K”
Just like another one.

[musicman]

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[JimRed]

Hey, everybody knows that workfare has been racissst all along!