Welfare fight heats up, Gingrich joins the fray
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Cramerton, N.C., April 25, 2012.
/ AP Photo/Chuck BurtonRomney said that as an Illinois state senator, Obama opposed the legislation hammered out by Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress in 1996 to impose stringent new work and study requirements on welfare recipients. As president, Obama has taken executive action to gut the law in an attempt to create "a nation of government dependency," Romney said in a campaign appearance in a high school auditorium here.
"Now he's president ... with a very careful executive action, he removed the requirement of work from welfare," Romney said. His campaign is also airing an attack ad on the subject, which asserts, "You wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check."
(Romney: Obama's always opposed work in welfare.)
Gingrich, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2012, lodged similar charges in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. The administration's recent move to allow states to apply for waivers from certain parts of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program is "outrageous," Gingrich said, and part of a conspiracy by Obama and liberals to increase government dependence.
"On the hard left, there is unending desire to create a dependent America," Gingrich said. "... It's not just Obama's a radical, but the people he appoints are even more radical." He singled out Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, who generated the administration's policy.
"She is waging war on the Catholic Church," Gingrich said. "She's adopted radical positions on a range of issues. Why would any everyday American believe that she is going to enforce -- that if she makes it optional, that she is going to enforce a work requirement? The fact is, when we wrote the bill, Section 407 was not (made) waive-able precisely because we distrusted people like the secretary of HHS."
The website Politifact, which investigates political claims, found Romney's charges to be untrue. A memo from George Sheldon, the acting assistant secretary at HHS, said the department wanted to give states more flexibility in meeting work requirements in order to "to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families," the website reported.
Obama campaign spokesman Lis Smith issued a response saying that Romney's continued attacks, which he launched on Tuesday, are "both untrue and hypocritical."
"Former President Clinton, the author of welfare reform, called Romney's comments 'not true', especially in light of Romney's previous support for a policy that would have eliminated time limits for welfare recipients, which would have ended welfare reform as we know it," she wrote. "If we take Mitt Romney at his word today, that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, it becomes clear that he lacks the core strength and principles the nation needs in a president."
Obama did not support the welfare reform bill when it was passed in 1996, saying he feared "disastrous results." But in 2008, while running for president, Obama said he'd changed his position about the landmark bill and had become "absolutely convinced" that the work-centered approach must be "the centerpiece of any social policy."
Matthew Shelley contributed to this story.
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In reality, Politifact is comprised of leftwing political activists hiding behind a wall of impartiality in order to promulgate their propaganda under the ruse of "fact checking." When they went online in August 2007, they wasted no time in getting their real mission underway: to get Obama elected, to get his radical agenda enacted, and to provide political cover for him against any and all criticisms. In addition, they also launched vicious and libelous attacks against John McCain and Sarah Palin during the campaign, but saving their most scathing screeds for anyone questioning his qualifications and eligibility for president.
My three-year investigation into their very actions and words has belied that "nonpartisan" tag. In fact, Politifact and the Times directly conspired with Obama for America to launch a disinformation campaign in concert with their efforts to elect Obama. My investigation also dug deep into the activities and publications of Factcheck and found that both of these fraudulent "gatekeepers of political truth" worked, in tandem, directly collaborating with the Obama Campaign on their plans of attack against Obama's opponents, both politician and public citizen alike.
I have collected articles that were posted concurrently on Politifact, Factcheck, and , "Fight the Smears," the Obama Campaign website, that conclusively prove they were reading off the same script, bulleting the same talking points, and relying on the same liberal "experts and scholars" as their sources of verification.
They also frequently cross-referenced themselves and other, ***-for-tat accolades, provided by the most left-leaning newspapers in the country, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and the Washington Post. It was from these like-minded liberals, that Politifact achieved its subsequent popularity and reputation for "impartiality, respectability, and truthfulness," thus allowing them to freely distribute their leftwing propaganda behind this facade.
They are very good at complaining about him doing anything that they do.
WELFARE has always been viewed as: People getting money for doing NOTHING! The REPUBLICANS "WIN" that game every time, and they are NEVER stigmatized for it at all, like the poor people ARE! Naming it some other word does not change the FACTS!
BUT most of the states had rep govs, like mine. We got 2 roads repaved. I guess the rest went into his pockets.
Are you saying they pick up the trash AND a welfare check?
What mother leaves a 3 month old baby in day care?
Are you human?
Welfare reform took place under Republican controled congress with Bill Clinton signing the new rules.
It was written by Republicans.
The exemptions can only be granted if the state can show it has a better plan.
Don't believe the lies. It's lectioneerin time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adc3MSS5Ydc&feature=fvwrel
I would readily say Obama does not need to get rid of the work requirement because thanks to the do-nothing congress, any job creating programs are still stuck somewhere in their inboxes.
Hey you on the right were all for that free trade so you could buy all those cheap products, never caring how many Americans were put out of work, as long as it was cheap and it didn't affect your job.
No truth, no sense just spew!