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 ...
I wonder if we are SPENDING less than half on welfare today. Something tells me we are not.
Been to New Orleans lately, Bill?
BARF!
what the heck is he talking about. Welfare is alive and well today. It has not ended. Johnson's legacy, one of the worst presidents of modern time besides Clinton and Carter, began his campaign on the war on poverty and it is a FAILURE. It is also a DEMOCRAT POLICY, and a SOCIALIST agenda.
Still re-working that stained dress legacy of his...
"Still re-working that stained dress legacy of his..."
True. But he's also trying to give Hillary some room to manuever with the moderates.
My thoughts exactly, word for word.
BUMP for the "We dragged you along kicking and screaming BUMP!"
Is this for Hillary's election sake? He shouldn't have bothered. It's the one good thing he did that still rankles the Dims to this day.
Not true.
Look who controls the House, Senate, White House, and we are starting to make small inroads in the Judiciary.
They haven't gotten away with it.
We have a winner !
we have another winner !
Needs repeating.
I'm sorry, Mr. President, but who was that screaming at the DNC convention "Mend it, don't end it?"
"1 Veto
2 Veto
3 Veto
Oh my! Election coming soon!...."
It was when Dick Morris explained to the boy that he cant veto this thing 3 times that he finally signed it.
Funny....I don't see any mention of how he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing, or that the only reason he capitulated was because it was an election year.
The lying never stops.
"We"?? Is he speaking french? As I recall, it was the GOP Congress that ended welfare over the objections of the bleeding heart liberals, Komrad Klinton included.
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