The Obama administration today issued a waiver for work requirements under the 1996 welfare reform law, prompting the chairman of the conservative caucus in the House to accuse the president of “hurting the very people he claims to help.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent an “information memorandum” to states this afternoon exercising waiver authority under the Social Security Act for the provision that “parents and caretakers receiving assistance under the [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)] program engage in work activities.”
“HHS is encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment,” the memo said, adding that the goal of the waiver is “to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”
“President Obama just tore up a basic foundation of the welfare contract,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “In exchange for taxpayer-funded TANF payments, the law calls on able-bodied adults to work, look for work, take classes, or undergo drug and alcohol counseling. It’s the tough love that gives people motivation to help themselves.”
Last year, the RSC introduced the Welfare Reform Act of 2011 to build upon the 1996 law including requiring able-bodied adult beneficiaries of food stamps to work or prepare for a job and full disclosure of welfare spending.
“By waiving the law’s requirements, President Obama will make it harder for Americans to escape poverty. He is hurting the very people he claims to help,” Jordan added of today’s move.
“Today’s action is also a blatant violation of the law. After immigration, education, marriage, and religious conscience protections, we can now add welfare reform to the list of laws President Obama refuses to follow.”
If we really had an opposition party, it would move to impeach.
Pathetic acts of desperation by a man that promised much and did little. He is now resorting to last minute attempts to manipulate votes despite the costs of his actions to the American people. His frequent lies are earning him the fitting title of liar in chief. What a sad state of this country when the supposed leader and his followers would destroy this country and the constitution if it meant it scored him a re-election. One can only hope that common sense America will understand the damage that lies ahead if this poor excuse for a President is re-elected. Without actions to save the very safety nets that exist for the most unfortunate of our society it will all come crashing down upon them and everyone else and there will be no bringing the ship from the bottom of the sea. When your children are slaves of foreign masters that rejoice in the headlines America has fallen many will tell stories about the days past when freedom and democracy existed.
Actually, this is not new at all. Rolling back welfare reform was one of the first things Obama did as President.
What is rich about this, is that during the Saddleback Forum, Obama claimed that welfare reform was something he had to admit worked really well, that he had changed his mind on this issue. Liar, of course.
One of Bill Clinton’s signature achievements, no less. I wonder what he thinks of this one.
When will you so-called conservatives stop parroting that leftist lie????
Bill Clinton did not reform welfare.
New Gingrich did.
He shoved it down BC’s throat with overwhelming public support.
His supporters begged him to veto it, but BC had seen the polls so he signed it, telling his people, “We’ll fix it later.”, meaning, “We’ll GUT it later.”, but he never got the chance.
Ever since it was proven to be a resounding success, Democrats have been claiming that it was Bill Clinton’s doing, and STUPID Republicans have been obediently nodding their heads in unison and saying, “Yup, Yup. Bill Clinton reformed welfare. Yup, yup, that’s what he did.”
Idiots.
“Yup, Yup. Bill Clinton reformed welfare. Yup, yup, that’s what he did.”
I’m sorta surprised Obama hasn’t ordered the DEA to hand out free cocaine and heroin. Maybe he’s saving that idea for later in the year.
Gordo, in a way D.C. has already done such a thing in a way.
The 2010, ‘Fair Sentencing Act’ which lessens jail time for those selling crack and powdered cocaine.
Though the intended reason for the Fair Sentencing Act coming to fruition is the, ‘racial disparity’ of said drug dealers.
Now drug dealers will do HALF the time and get back to the dealing game.
Pathetic.
Why would Obama and the elitists want to help people escape poverty when so many are required to become the new voting serfs? Cloward-Pivan/Alinsky require that the occupy-lands,barrios, plantations,slums and ghettos be filled and trapped in never-never land.
Containing an angry mob of useful idiots is the tool needed to stick it to the man. It is the job of a community organizer. Blame and shake down is the name of the game. Bypassing congress is the test to take it to the streets. The consequences do not come due until November.
She does not have the gray matter to make this kind of statement. All she is, is a figurehead and an Obama mouth piece. The only thing saving her sorry_ _ _ is that the Congress is filled with Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street Republicans.
I know I will be slammed for saying this, but it may actually be cost effective. My family is not on welfare, because thankfully I have a responsible caring husband who is my equal, but we have done the math and even with my college degree I can’t afford to work. The costs of working, especially daycare would make my salary negative. The true cost of government subsidized daycare may be more than just paying a women to take care of her own. If the mothers breastfeed, then the taxpayers would not have to pay for formula, which is really just a way to subsidize the formula companies. I’m not sure if it would really work out like that, the mothers may not have the will to breastfeed and may try to pawn their kids off on others anyways (staying at home with children day in and day out is not easy), but who knows, maybe it would be better for the kids.
Liberals don’t breastfeed. They send the milk to a labratory to be experimented on for its mind control properties.
Mind control boobs. Whoa, get out the tinfoil, this brings tune in Tokyo to the next level.
So if they quit working how will they get to collect EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)? I wonder if the next move will to make that Unearned Income Tax Credit?
Not to mention, I see a lot of black women wheeling around white toddlers in massive strollers who might be giving notice soon. Oops.
what a travesty
Why are conservatives okay with paying for subsidized daycare? How about cap the amount the mother recieves at the cost of daycare, essentially paying her what would have otherwise been paid to a third party. So it is like having a job, it is just that her job is being the daycare provider to her own children. In a perfect world she would have a husband to figure this out with, but we have to work with the broken world that we really have.
don’t you just love those unintended consequences?
Gotta get those votes for Nov 6.
Now that the Obama Doctrine reinvented the powers of the executive office, it will be interesting to see what a sufficiently gutsy conservative POTUS will choose to do. How about refusing to enforce laws and encrusted regulations within the EPA, energy and other intrusive bureaucracies. The worm will turn.
But seriously, how the hell is it that Sibelius can simply announce that the Obama has changed the law passed by the House in 1996? With what authority? Is he a king or something?
Well, as the Bible says, “money answers all things”.
Obama is truly a Humanist president. Our first atheist Christian president. We should be in awe, perhaps. That’s not so easy to pull off. Here we have Caesar and Christ wrapped in one. What could go wrong?
Obama’s doing EXACTLY (legal, illegal – what’s the difference in this empty vessel, ideologue’s head?) what he was trained, guided to do. Cloward-Piven would be proud. I’m sure Piven is beaming from this enemy of the state’s action(s).
The Rule of Law, checks and balances, serving the productive and remaining the World’s superpower is BENEATH, dated thinking to Obama. He operates solely on emotion, envy and warped stance of ‘justice’ and reparation-like justification.
Obama’s ‘Bible’ is or a similar minded book by bourgeoisie Socialist Barbara Ehrenreich’s, ‘The Mean Season’.
Ehrenreich and Obama, obviously subscribe to the ‘cruelty’ of removing 1 from welfare (which is precisely what Reagan and later Clinton HAD to update, improve in ’96) and being forced to, gasp.. work! As well as these welfare types having to start.. from the bottom. That’s ludicrous to those of Obama’s ilk!
Those who had stars in their eyes in ’08 for Obama and continue doing so are far more dangerous than our Erkel-in-Chief.
If people haven’t learned yet, this is a small man, with no ability and no vision.
I use the term obozo, our clown in chief, unpatriotic failure, White black boy with no economic ability and a confirmed chi style thug. But other than that he is perfect for this country.
obozo, clown in chief. Got to love it when a person tells you shovel ready jobs and laughs when they don’t exist
unpatriotic. told us that running up the debt was unpatriotic and then ran up an extra $64,000 on every tax payer credit card in the last three years. Hope you all have that money lying around to pay your fair share.
Failure, economic plan would keep unemployment under 8% Failure.
White black boy in tribute to how Zimmerman was treat.
no economic ability is shown by how his budgets have yet to get a single person to vote for them.
And Chi-style Thug is evidenced every time he tries another attack on his opponent, but seems what worked in Chicago isn’t playing on the national stage.
Time to kick this thin skinned failure back to Chicago and allow his wife to have her dream realized, the dream of walking out the White House and not returning, and I don’t really care if the door hits them on the way out or not.
2 Thessalonians 3:10
“The Obama administration today issued a waiver for work requirements under the 1996 welfare reform law, prompting the chairman of the conservative caucus in the House to accuse the president of “hurting the very people he claims to help.”
You mean the same law that a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had passed in Congress? So you’re telling me that a socialist Democrat, Obama, is undoing all of the hard work that was done by a more conservative Democrat, Bill Clinton? If that’s so and it is currently being supported by the Democratic Party, then I wonder if a “conservative” like Bill Clinton could even get the nomination of his own party today? The way Obama and his minions are going, I doubt it.
I take back what I said above if what I just read is true. Do single moms really get to go to college for free and get free daycare? If I am wrong, feel free to bitch slap me. If it is true, I am a fool. Why did I pay to go to college and wait to have children? It makes more sense to have children sooner than later career wise and they get free college too. Wow, good for them. They win. I am the fool.
Looks like life is working out great for “Julia”. She has her kids early with uncle sammy paying the bill, then by the time she reaches her thirties her kids are old enough to stay home alone while she goes to work at her thriving career with a leg up from her free college education (no student loans to pay off… sweet!), and she even has the green light to discriminate against hiring men who have stay at home wives who had to put their career on hold because they mistakenly waited until their 30s to have children. Win, win, win for “Julia”!
We who are obviously conservatives commenting here, continue to call Barack Obama names, list his misuse of the office he does not deserve to hold, and watch Congress and the Supreme Court fail in their duty to control him. Like a rotten spoiled brat who has intimidated his cowardly parents, his teachers, the law itself, we relieve our frustration writing of his ever-more-daring exploits. He’s made a mockery of the office he holds. We brought a charge of impeachment against Bill Clinton for lying about his sexual conduct, which in effect, did no harm to the country. And we sit on our hands while Obama tears apart our Constitution, ignores laws, prepares to initiate martial law. Our inefectual Congress should hide in shame.
The concept of requiring work to receive welfare was anathema to the far left in 1996, and that hasn’t changed. One more damning piece of evidence that ObamaRx is at heart a communist, one with Chicago thug tendencies.
This is just a preview. This guy either knows he’s toast in November or he knows the fix is in and will assume dictatorial powers when given the signal. Either way he will keep hacking away at whatever restraints on outright totalitarianism that remain in our laws at an increasing pace.
Some fine day, using the security laws already passed, giving the President full authority, all the lefties in Congress, in the media, in academia, in the bureaucracy will be rounded up and shipped to the Gulag Archipelago, a deal having been made with ‘The Little Father’ in Moscow. The lefties will not be allowed to return to the USa, not be allowed west of the Urals, not allowed to go to China. their new lifestyle would be ‘strict regime’. As Lenin said, quoting St Paul, “Who will not work shall not eat.”
One of the objects of The Glorious Revolution of1688 was to state that the King had no”dispensing Power” i.e. right of waiver of law. That’s why many of Obama’s behavios constitute impeachable offenses,