Posted on 08/22/2006 5:27:46 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Op-Ed Contributor
How We Ended Welfare, Together
By BILL CLINTON
Published: August 22, 2006
In my first State of the Union address, I promised to “end welfare as we know it”...
The last 10 years have shown that we did in fact end welfare as we knew it, creating a new beginning for millions of Americans.
In the past decade, welfare rolls have dropped substantially, from 12.2 million in 1996 to 4.5 million today... Sixty percent of mothers who left welfare found work... More than 20,000 businesses hired 1.1 million former welfare recipients...
The success of welfare reform was bolstered by other anti-poverty initiatives, including the doubling of the earned-income tax credit in 1993 for lower-income workers; the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which included $3 billion to move long-term welfare recipients and low-income, noncustodial fathers into jobs; the Access to Jobs initiative, which helped communities create innovative transportation services to enable former welfare recipients and other low-income workers to get to their new jobs; and the welfare-to-work tax credit, which provided tax incentives to encourage businesses to hire long-term welfare recipients.
I also signed into law the toughest child-support enforcement in history, doubling collections; an increase in the minimum wage in 1997; a doubling of federal financing for child care, helping parents look after 1.5 million children in 1998; and a near doubling of financing for Head Start programs.
The results: child poverty dropped to 16.2 percent in 2000, the lowest rate since 1979, and in 2000, the percentage of Americans on welfare reached its lowest level in four decades. Overall, 100 times as many people moved out of poverty and into the middle class during our eight years as in the previous 12. Of course the booming economy helped, but the empowerment policies made a big difference.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
We dragged you along kicking and screaming BUMP!
Slick Willy taking credit for the Republicans' "Contract With America." How sad that man has become.
Desperation for a legacy bump. Pathetic!
Yeah Bill you really wanted this... LOL! I think you did it after Republican sweep in 94. Now you are trying to take credit for it. LOL!
Why is Clinton writing this op-ed now? Is there a current discussion about welfare (reform) that I missed?
So, Bub, why are you telling us all this now? Afraid you've become irrevelant. . .or pimping for that sanctimonious sow of yours?
I'm sure the hands at EIB will have found plenty of Slick's quotes for El Rushbo to use today.
Did he mention in his op-ed he signed welfare reform the day before the democratic convention in Chicago started?
Yes, he vetoed it 2 or 3 times, then the elections were coming, Dick Morris said "One more time and you're unemployed," the almost unchanged bill hits his desk, and viola, he gets religion. Unbelievable.
He manages to get "my" and "I" into the first sentence.
This stat would be stated as "40% of mothers who were forcibly removed from the welfare rolls have been unable to find work to support their families" if it was a Republican speaker.
What a bunch of crap. Newt dragged him kicking and screaming the whole way.
Bill searching for a legacy. Has about as much credibility as his real legacy, "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss L...(point finger)...."
Good catch.
welfare is alive and well. or perhaps they're all well established as coke dealers, pimps, bookies, political activists, and urban studies majors by now. Off welfare, into small businesshood.
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