The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the Clinton-era reform.
While this real news occurred yesterday, most of the media remained fixated on political ads and speeches, letting a major and unilateral shift in America’s welfare system go nearly unreported.
Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Heritage Foundation played a pivotal role in building bipartisan consensus for the reform and providing many of the recommendations that became part of the law. The whole point was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.
This reform was very successful. TANF became the only welfare program (out of more than 70) that promoted greater self-reliance. It moved 2.8 million families off the welfare rolls and into jobs so that they were providing for themselves. Child poverty fell, and single-parent employment rose. Recipients were required to perform at least 20–30 hours per week of work or job preparation activities in exchange for the cash benefit.
Now, Obama’s HHS is claiming that it can waive those work requirements that are at the heart of the law, and without Congress’s consent.
When it established TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from waiver authority. They explicitly did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of HHS bureaucrats. In a December 2001, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that there was no authority to override work and other major requirements: “Effectively, there are no TANF waivers,” it reported.
But that did not stop the Obama Administration, which has been increasing welfare spending at an alarming rate already. President Obama has added millions to the welfare rolls, and his Administration has come under fire lately for its efforts to expand and add more Americans to the food stamp program.
POVERTY and MORE POVERTY….exactly what we need Ofraud! You Mr President are fast tracking the United States into a Third World Country – – Perhaps Ofraud is ‘home sick’, yes, it’s mean to say…. but at this moment, I don’t care…..
American workers….Those who Actually Work… have to work 7 MONTHS out of the year as it is….For the GOVERNMENT….. If THAT isn’t enough to piss a few people off, well, it should!!
OFraud is so very – very – very desperate… for votes!. He cannot run a country, cannot be a leader, people who have smarts and intelligence don’t even support him!!…so what does he do???
He has to lower himself and pander to the many who live, sometimes 4 to 5 generations in Government Poverty… for votes!! What does that tell ya??
And this is what OFraud has to offer to the American people…?!?!
The hypocrisy of this is the Left’s “Continious” and drawn out “fight” or “war” for years [50] “On Poverty” [Government Poverty that is] …SO, what does the Ofraud [the Left Do]???….
….Offers MORE POVERTY to American people in exchange for Votes!!??!….
Does this make one Bit of sense to anyone Right or Left???? What the hell is going on???
The Department of Health and Human Services does not have the authority to rewrite Congressional passed and Presidential signed law, nor does a sitting President. Congresswrites and passes legislature, no other branch has been granted that power under the Constitution. This is a clear violation of the Separation of Powers. The House of Reps needs to investigate who penned and authorized this unconstitutional “official policy directive” and nail their asses to the wall.
Democrats take sober notice! You certainly would not like a Republican President or the agencies under him to expand his powers in this manner. If you let this unconstitutional behavior stand and continue you will only have yourself to blame when these tactics are used against your sacred cows.