Telling the truth isn't one of his strong suits.
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Welfare "reform," which happened during Democratic president Bill Clinton's term in some stupid attempt to "triangulate," has left a lot of tragedy in its wake:
As Josh Eidelson noted at Jacobin , the work requirements are a clandestine release valve for the poor people that politicians want to get rid of, but are too tight-fisted to actually care for. As the welfare system coercively links people's benefits to (government-defined) work activities, participants have been tethered to a world of underpaid labor in which jobless poverty might sometimes seem preferable to low-paid, demeaning dead-end jobs .
And often families fall through the cracks. According to CBPP , among those who’ve tumbled off the welfare rolls, many are “disconnected from both welfare and work.” The underlying assumption seems to be that the poor will avoid work as long as the nanny state lavishes them with welfare checks. It’s hard not to notice the racist overtones of this canard--the mythical black welfare queen --unless you fail to notice poverty altogether. And "reform" makes it easier for politicians to wear ignorance of both race and poverty like a badge of honor.
CBPP’s analysis shows that in the long term, although employment rates rose among single mothers when TANF was in its infancy, “as the economy has weakened, a substantial portion of the early gains have been lost.” The employment trendlines indicate that overall, “the economy, rather than policy, is now the main driver of employment among single mothers.”
Fuck that "triangulating" shit. Clinton has a lot of explaining to do.
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