Welfare Reform Act of 1996...

[Moooooo]

Also known as the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996."

The bill was hammered out in a compromise with the Republican-controlled Congress, and many Democrats were critical of Clinton's decision to sign the bill. In fact, it emerged as one of the most controversial issues for Clinton within his own party.

One of the bill's provisions was a time limit. Under the law, no person could receive welfare payments for more than five years, consecutive or nonconsecutive.

Another controversial change was transferring welfare to a block grant system, i.e. one in which the federal government gives states "blocks" of money, which the states then distribute under their own legislation and criteria. Some states simply kept the federal rules, but others used the money for non-welfare programs, such as subsidized childcare (to allow parents to work) or subsidized public transportation (to allow people to travel to work without owning cars).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_reform

[dazzleman]

Approve, though I don't think it went far enough.  Still, it was the single best thing that Clinton did as president, in my opinion.

The AFDC program, which this law repealed, was an abomination that is probably the single biggest contributor to the tragic and disastrous collapse of the black family in particular, and it greatly weakened the family structure among the poor and near poor by rewarding irresponsible out-of-wedlock child bearing.  At least we have taken away the incentive for that, though rebuilding a strong or at least workable family structure among the poor will prove to be a very difficult job.

[Moooooo]

Approve, though I don't think it went far enough.  Still, it was the single best thing that Clinton did as president, in my opinion.

Do you think Clinton signed it because he wanted to or did the Republican congress pressure him into signing the bill?

[dazzleman]

Approve, though I don't think it went far enough.  Still, it was the single best thing that Clinton did as president, in my opinion.

Do you think Clinton signed it because he wanted to or did the Republican congress pressure him into signing the bill?

I think he signed it because it was very popular, and he was running for re-election.  I don't really think he wanted to sign it, and left to his own devices, he probably would not have signed that bill.  He had already vetoed two previous welfare reform bills that were very similar.

Dick Morris, Clinton's principal political advisor at the time, claims to have told him, "sign and you win, veto and you lose."  Much of Clinton's staff was adamantly opposed to the bill, as was Hillary Clinton, and they resented Morris having, in their view, hijacked the president's agenda when he joined Clinton's staff after the disastrous 1994 congressional elections. 

There's no denying that signing this bill deprived the Republicans of a major issue with which to club the Democrats over the head.  It is one of the ironies of politics that success often leads to political problems and weakness, and I'd say the Republicans have never fully recovered to this day from having won the cold war and produced welfare reform, since those two issues caused many people to rule out voting for the Democratic party.

Clinton himself had proposed a much weaker welfare reform bill earlier in his presidency while he still had a Democratic congress.  It was basically a rehashing of older unsuccessful welfare reform bills, and it went nowhere because Clinton decided to give priority to Hillary's health care proposals.

[The Duke]

I support the bill, but in some ways it was flawed.  It left AFDC to the states, but that in my opinion was just passing the buck.  Every good reform states made to the administration of TANF (The successor to AFDC) could have been made at the Federal level.  There was no point to giving it over to states.

[opebo]

Strongly disapprove.  The victims of the owning class were further abused by the political power of the priviledged.

The shabbiest part was the support for this violence against those at the bottom of the heirarchy by their fellow working-class members - the hubris filled fools who have, for the moment, jobs.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I sort of disapprove... some parts were a good step forward for sure and something had to be done about it, but at the same time it didn't address the real scandal in the U.S welfare system (that it simply keeps people in a slightly-more-bearable form of poverty rather than actually get them out of it).
But then again it's not in the electoral interest of either party to try to deal with that problem, is it?

[dazzleman]

I sort of disapprove... some parts were a good step forward for sure and something had to be done about it, but at the same time it didn't address the real scandal in the U.S welfare system (that it simply keeps people in a slightly-more-bearable form of poverty rather than actually get them out of it).

I think your reasoning here is seriously flawed.  How can welfare possibly get people out of poverty when it subsidizes and encourages the behavior that leads to poverty in the first place?

To get out of poverty, it is necessary to have a strong family structure and decent educational opportunities.  The biggest thing I could fault us for is failing to get enough beyond politically correct fantasies to take the steps necessary to make a decent education available to those living in poor areas who are now hampered by horrible public schools.

Family structure, in the end, is up to the individuals.  Government can't provide family structure, though as we've seen, it can and has encouraged the destruction of family structure through misguided welfare programs.  And while government could provide better educational opportunities to those who are interested in education, it can't force interest in it either, which many poor people lack.

Nobody, and least of all government, really can get anybody out of poverty.  The mistake we have made is in regarding the poor as simply innocent victims who are incapable of doing anything different than what they are doing.  This then became a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Any real effort to get the poor out of poverty can only come from the poor themselves, and will succeed of course with the help of the rest of society.  But the rest of society cannot do it for them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How can welfare possibly get people out of poverty when it subsidizes and encourages the behavior that leads to poverty in the first place?

No, what I meant was that welfare should be setup to get people out of poverty. It certainly should not end up perpetuating or causing the problem and that in the U.S it has is a disgrace.
I'm certainly not defending the U.S welfare system as it was before 1996 though; I think a genuinely radical overhaul of the system is needed to help to get people out of poverty by giving people an education (with an emphasis on vocational education) and oppertunities to get jobs.

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That depends on what is meant by "poverty"; I'm not really talking about the standardised income-based official poverty used in the U.S here, btw. And I suppose it depends what getting people out of poverty means (see below).

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That's true up to a point (although the opposite arguement is just as bad). Mind you, the list of mistakes made about the poor is a very long and very depressing one so...

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I suppose that's true; what I meant by a welfare system that gets people out of poverty, is a welfare system that gives people an oppertunity to get out of poverty. You can't force an irritatingly large minority of people to get themselves out of poverty no matter how hard you try, but, when presented with oppertunities to get out most people will at least give it a try.
*Help* to pull people up rather than just dole money out (with a few strings attached) basically.

[Emsworth]

Approve, but the bill did not go far enough.

[dazzleman]

How can welfare possibly get people out of poverty when it subsidizes and encourages the behavior that leads to poverty in the first place?

No, what I meant was that welfare should be setup to get people out of poverty. It certainly should not end up perpetuating or causing the problem and that in the U.S it has is a disgrace.
I'm certainly not defending the U.S welfare system as it was before 1996 though; I think a genuinely radical overhaul of the system is needed to help to get people out of poverty by giving people an education (with an emphasis on vocational education) and oppertunities to get jobs.

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That depends on what is meant by "poverty"; I'm not really talking about the standardised income-based official poverty used in the U.S here, btw. And I suppose it depends what getting people out of poverty means (see below).

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That's true up to a point (although the opposite arguement is just as bad). Mind you, the list of mistakes made about the poor is a very long and very depressing one so...

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I suppose that's true; what I meant by a welfare system that gets people out of poverty, is a welfare system that gives people an oppertunity to get out of poverty. You can't force an irritatingly large minority of people to get themselves out of poverty no matter how hard you try, but, when presented with oppertunities to get out most people will at least give it a try.
*Help* to pull people up rather than just dole money out (with a few strings attached) basically.

I agree with much of what you have said.  The caveat I would add is that you cannot "give" somebody any type of education.  You can make the opportunity available, but you cannot give an education to somebody who doesn't want one.  What you can do, and what we have failed miserably to do through misguided liberal policies, is refuse to allow those who are not interested in education to effectively prevent those who might be interested in education from getting one.  This is the effect of the liberal "rights" mentality and the court rulings that flow from it.

[Moooooo]

See DU is not completely filled with crazy's after all...

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[TomC]

Generally support.

[Emsworth]

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Individuals need three years to find a job? That's an absurdly long amount of time.

In any event, help, whether for three days or for three years, should be provided by private charities funded by voluntary contributions, not governments.

[dazzleman]

See DU is completely filled with crazy's after all...

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Was the person who posted that on DU banned?

Margaret Thatcher once said that the measure of political success is how much you change the opposition party.  The fact that even most liberals don't speak up in defense of the former welfare system, which was deep-sixed by the 1996 welfare reform law, shows the degree of success that Republicans had with the welfare issue.

Of course, the bad news for Republicans is that you can't live on past success.  Resentment of welfare kept many people voting Republican for a long time, and Democratic refusal to change obviously destructive welfare laws cost them politically.  But now that Republican advantage is gone.

I was raised on welfare resentment.  In my house, "welfare" and "trash" were practically one word, because one always followed the other.  And in opebo-like fashion, my mom didn't say that a person was "on welfare," she said a person "is welfare," as if they were a different species.  As in, "I don't care what they call it, or what kind of fancy name they give it, she's welfare."  She said that in response to a woman she saw living in a building in which I was looking to buy an apartment.

I think a lot of that resentment was and continues to be justified, though we have to find constructive ways to address the issue through incentivizing people to give up welfare dependency.  This takes a combination of opportunity creation and tough love.  The old way did just the opposite, and people were right to be angry and frustrated about it.

[dazzleman]

Individuals need three years to find a job? That's an absurdly long amount of time.

In any event, help, whether for three days or for three years, should be provided by private charities funded by voluntary contributions, not governments.

Many of these people have no practical training, no work ethic, nothing.  And they are saddled with children they never should have had, at too young an age.  You cannot pay for child care with an entry level salary.

More people need to learn to do things in the right order.  First education, then marriage, then children.  Not children first, then maybe education and marriage later, if at all.  The poor are usually people who did things in the wrong order.

[© tweed]

See DU is completely filled with crazy's after all...

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That's an extremely intelligent post/plan by DU standards.

Anyway, I support the bill.  It's passage showed what a brilliant politican Bill Clinton was (or the brilliance of his advisors).  He used the popular aspects of the Contract With America, and popular aspects of the Republican party platform, to boost his own re-election after the GOP took congress in 1994.  The bill was the Republicans' idea, for the most part, and Clinton used it as a fleeting boost to his own re-election.

[Moooooo]

See DU is completely filled with crazy's after all...

Forgot the 'not'.  Not completely filled with crazy's.

Edited.

[Dave from Michigan]

Individuals need three years to find a job? That's an absurdly long amount of time.

In any event, help, whether for three days or for three years, should be provided by private charities funded by voluntary contributions, not governments.

Many of these people have no practical training, no work ethic, nothing.  And they are saddled with children they never should have had, at too young an age.  You cannot pay for child care with an entry level salary.

More people need to learn to do things in the right order.  First education, then marriage, then children.  Not children first, then maybe education and marriage later, if at all.  The poor are usually people who did things in the wrong order.

exactly education and a good paying job so you can afford children should come before children and marriage.  unforuntely I think it's to politicial incorrect to say this  so no politician will say it.  

[dazzleman]

exactly education and a good paying job so you can afford children should come before children and marriage.  unforuntely I think it's to politicial incorrect to say this  so no politician will say it.  

I think we have to realistic and compassionate, so long as people are deserving of that compassion.  We shouldn't write people off just because they make a mistake, so long as they are willing to make the effort to put things right.  The problem with many poor people is that they have had an entitlement mentality bred into them, and they're not willing to get themselves over the hump.

[Emsworth]

I think we have to realistic and compassionate, so long as people are deserving of that compassion. We shouldn't write people off just because they make a mistake, so long as they are willing to make the effort to put things right.  The problem with many poor people is that they have had an entitlement mentality bred into them, and they're not willing to get themselves over the hump.

The problem, in my view, can only be solved by completely ending government involvement in welfare. Once the government starts spending even a little on welfare, people tend to become accustomed to receiving handouts, rather than trying to earn their own money. Furthermore, welfare programs are quite burdensome for the economy. It is much better to leave the whole problem to private charities.

[Dave from Michigan]

the entitlement menality is dangerous,  also some people think there entitled to a great paying job.  Although lots of poor people just mad a mistake like yuou said and are actually trying to find a job.  There are several people at my work who are like this.  Private charities and churches do a good job of helping the poor and are a lot more effective. 

[opebo]

exactly education and a good paying job so you can afford children should come before children and marriage.  unforuntely I think it's to politicial incorrect to say this  so no politician will say it.  

There are very few 'good paying jobs', 9iron, certainly far fewer than there are workers pursuing them.  Good paying jobs are a politically created phenomenon, and the political climate of the last 25 years has been for drastic reductions in wages and benefits.

It is absurd to blame the poor and powerless for this violence that has been committed upon them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The problem, in my view, can only be solved by completely ending government involvement in welfare.

You then end up with a completely different problem and one that most people would think of as worse.

[dazzleman]

the entitlement menality is dangerous,  also some people think there entitled to a great paying job.  Although lots of poor people just mad a mistake like yuou said and are actually trying to find a job.  There are several people at my work who are like this.  Private charities and churches do a good job of helping the poor and are a lot more effective. 

Realistically though, private charities and churches don't have the money to deal with the issue on a grand scale. 

I think that government programs since the 1930s have deepened the poverty problem, and effectively redefined poverty from an economic problem to a moral failure through their subsidization and encouragement of deleterious lifestyles that entrench poverty.

I don't believe the poverty problem can ever be solved, but it will take some government involvement to make it less intense, realistically.  We have to follow the right policies.  Welfare reform was a big step in the right direction, but now we need to get rid of politically correct thinking on education and either get rid of or isolate those "students" who are preventing those around them from getting an education in failing schools, usually found in poor areas.  Failing that, we need to find a way to allow kids who actually want an education to remove themselves from these schools.  Liberal refusal to distinguish between those who are deserving of help and those who are undeserving of help has severely damaged those who are forced by economic circumstances to live in close proximity to the highly dysfunctional and deeply entrenched underclass poor.