"How Hillary Clinton Betrayed the Children's Defense Fund for Political Gain"

[dragonfly301]

An interesting read on the welfare reform bill and Marian Wright Edelman's thoughts on it. The article is from 2008 but still relevant today.

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/how-hillary-clinton-betrayed-the-childrens-defense-fund-for-political-gain?utm_source=hootsuite

[elleng]

1. Yes, interesting:

'I mean, when President Clinton signed off on the, well, so-called welfare reform bill, you said, “His signature on this pernicious bill makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.” So what are your hopes right now for these Democrats? And what are your thoughts about Hillary Rodham Clinton?

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, you know, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics. We have to build a constituency, and you don’t—and we profoundly disagreed with the forms of the welfare reform bill, and we said so. We were for welfare reform, I am for welfare reform, but we need good jobs, we need adequate work incentives, we need minimum wage to be decent wage and livable wage, we need health care, we need transportation, we need to invest preventively in all of our children to prevent them ever having to be on welfare.

And yet, you know, many years after that, when many people are pronouncing welfare reform a great success, you know, we’ve got growing child poverty, we have more children in poverty and in extreme poverty over the last six years than we had earlier in the year. When an economy is down, and the real test of welfare reform is what happens to the poor when the economy is not booming. Well, the poor are suffering, the gap between rich and poor widening. We have what I consider one of—a growing national catastrophe of what we call the cradle-to-prison pipeline. A black boy today has a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, a black girl a one-in-seventeen chance. A Latino boy who’s born in 2001 has a one-in-six chance of going to prison. We are seeing more and more children go into our child welfare systems, go dropping out of school, going into juvenile justice detention facilities. Many children are sitting up—15,000, according to a recent congressional GAO study—are sitting up in juvenile institutions solely because their parents could not get mental health and health care in their community. This is an abomination.'

[jillan]

2. Marian was also interviewed by Amy Goodman in 2007 and said the same thing.

Old friend but not political friends & how she was appalled by the Welfare Reform bill.

Just watch Hillary Thurs nite name drop Marian Wright Edelman during the debates. She has done it at every single debate.

[dragonfly301]

3. She mentioned the Children's Defense Fund when talking about her student loans

the other day http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/hillarys-personal-story-about-student-loans-fabrication

It really must be exhausting keeping all her stories straight.

[jillan]

4. Some people are just natural liars.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Curious how some of the people who've known her longest...

... find it hard to support her.

Marian Wright Edelman, Bill Curry, and Robert Reich spring to mind.

[bigtree]

6. it was Bill Clinton's legislation

...and even Edelman attributed the welfare bill to him, rather than Hillary.

There's scarcely a harsh word about Hillary from Edleman in that article posted.


here's an article where Marion Wright Edelman has more to say about Hillary:

Washington, DC -The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) celebrated forty years of changing the odds for children and honored Former Secretary of State and CDF alumna Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, September 30, 2013. Secretary Clinton was recognized for her dedication and contributions to child advocacy.

“CDF is pleased to recognize Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been a tireless voice for children. She’s brilliant. She cares deeply about children. She perseveres. She’s an incredibly hard worker, and she stays with it. She’s done extraordinarily well in everything she’s ever done. and I’m just so proud of her,” said Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children’s Defense Fund.

[2cannan]

7. Why It Matters That Hillary Clinton Championed Welfare Reform

snip

No mere bystander, Hillary Clinton played an active role in the lead-up to welfare reform, advocating “harsher polices like ending traditional welfare,” as journalist (and Nation contributor) Liza Featherstone writes, “even as others in the administration, like Labor Secretary Robert Reich, proposed alternatives.” Indeed, in 1997 Clinton took credit for pushing for a welfare bill that would more closely monitor and punish women’s “poor parenting” behavior: “I’ve advocated tying the welfare payment to certain behavior about being a good parent. You couldn’t get your welfare check if your child wasn’t immunized. You couldn’t get your welfare check if you didn’t participate in a parenting program. You couldn’t get your check if you didn’t show up for student-teacher conferences.”

snip

Even after welfare reform had passed, Clinton continued to praise it in columns she wrote as first lady. Distorting feminist ideas that linked women’s independence to meaningful careers outside the home, she portrayed welfare recipients as dependents who needed to be cajoled to get a job for their own good. Picking up this theme in a 1999 column, she paternalistically affirmed: “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.” In 2000, she echoed the same theme, taking direct ownership of the legislation: “Since we first asked mothers to move from welfare to work, millions of families have made the transition from dependency to dignity.”

From Why It Matters That Hillary Clinton Championed Welfare Reform
http://www.thenation.com/article/why-it-matters-that-hillary-clinton-championed-welfare-reform/#

[dragonfly301]

8. thank you - i literally was a second away from posting this^

great minds...

[2cannan]

9. Gotta keep it honest, right? nt

[loyalsister]

10. Another underappreciated aspect is the relationship to mass incarceration

It took financial providers out of the picture for a lot of families. They would have less income from wages or child support.
I have a hard time seeing a consequence as unintended when a person is smart enough to have foresight. She actively and knowingly promoted derailing opportunities and destroying the lives of thousands if not millions of families with those policies and has no remorse.

[2cannan]

11. So true. It breaks my heart to think of all of the children who have suffered in the years since. nt

[loyalsister]

12. I think I would gain some respect for her if she admitted

she was wrong about the crime bill and welfare reform and acknowledged the pain it has caused. Then, showed a plan to revive the social safety net and find a way to compensate people for what has been lost through mass incarceration.
I'm not holding my breath, though.

[NWCorona]

13. FYI

[dragonfly301]

14. Thank you for posting that video-it was just the pep talk I needed

never underestimate Bernie!

[AzDar]

15. She's a horrible candidate...

HORRIBLE