2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIntercept: "John Kasich and the Clintons Collaborated on Law That Helped Double Extreme Poverty"
Note: I originally posted this elsewhere, but felt it would be better suited here. I deleted the original post.How do we as a society address the 15-year-old mother on welfare? What do we owe her? Can we demand a set of behavioral standards from her? asked the interviewer. Sure, Ive been talking about that since 1973, replied the first lady. You know, I am one of the first people who wrote about how rights and responsibilities had to go hand in hand.
When you talk about moving someone to work from welfare in two years, what happens to people who dont want to work? Would you impose sanctions? followed up the interviewer. Oh, I think you have to. What happened in Arkansas is that people who refused for whatever reason to participate had their benefits cut, she replied.
Hillary Clinton continued to defend the welfare cutback over the years. Too many of those on welfare had known nothing but dependency all their lives, and many would have found it difficult to make the transition to work on their own, she wrote in a 1999 op-ed. In a 2002 interview she said the policy has resulted in recipients no longer being deadbeats theyre actually out there being productive.
Full article: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/13/john-kasich-and-the-clintons-collaborated-on-law-that-helped-double-extreme-poverty-in-america/
My own personal view (with which I'm sure others will disagree, as they are obviously free to do) is that "disgusting" doesn't even begin to describe this. I could not bring myself to cast a vote for anyone with this policy history or views, which to me are representative of a morality so backwards and broken as to be offensive.
Workfare was and remains nothing short of a cynical war on America's most poor and vulnerable. It is an enduring tragedy, and it is baffling to me that anyone--especially on the left--is willing to engage in the level of mental gymnastics required to defend it, or those who worked so rigorously to implement it.
FreakinDJ
(17,644 posts)BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)And Clinton seems to want to do them all.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)i did not know she actually called welfare recipients "deadbeats"
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)If I were canvassing South Carolina, I'd have that in a talking point. I may use it here in Tennessee. We're poor states where welfare is frequently a necessity no matter how hard we work.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)What a despicable woman.
farleftlib
(2,125 posts)So much for Hillary's early much-vaunted advocacy for children:
During an interview on Democracy Now in 2007, Edelman described her changed relationship with the Clintons, saying, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics.
And then there's this. Hillary's current supporter had this to say about it at the time:
I stand with Edelman. It's always politics with Bill and Hill. There's no moral fiber in either of them.
TheLogicalSong
(44 posts)We were a single-minimum-wage-income family living in subsidized housing and my mother was denied welfare benefits.
The case worker told her that if she was a smoker, she could get some help, but was denied because she didn't meet the other criteria put into place with the inhumane welfare reform bill.
Laughing Mirror
(4,185 posts)to pull you out of poverty, don't you realize? That's what they tried to make everybody believe. As if your life wasn't hard enough as it was, now it must become desperate, impossible. That will teach you, the law says.
It is hard for me to believe anybody who had anything to do with that welfare reform could call themselves caring.
Mufaddal
(1,021 posts)At least once in Bowling for Columbine, but I feel like I remember him going after it on The Awful Truth or TV Nation as well. In particular, I remember a segment of him bringing a group of women to clean city hall, or something to that effect. Was that in Bowling or something else? Anywhere, there's this.
Cobalt Violet
(9,905 posts)Sorry you had to endure that. Many people just don't get that there were real lives ruined by this.