Liberals Rally To Attack Romney Over Welfare Reform Ad....Lie Like A Dog About It In The Process

The Romney ad showing Obama gutted the historic welfare reform of the 90s has liberals freaking out.

PolitiFact, the despicable "fact checking" organization rated the ad "Pants on Fire" (which roughly translates to, True but hurts our guy Obama".

Want proof Obama is ready to let people skip trying to find work and just get a check? Look no further than the New York Times (safe link to Mikey Kaus).

[Nevada] asked to discuss flexibility in imposing those requirements. Perhaps, the state asked, those families hardest to employ could be exempted from the work requirements for six months while officials worked with them to stabilize their households.

"Exempted from the work requirements". Hmmm, I no fact checker but that sounds like weakening the work requirements and just sending checks to me.

Beyond that, whether or not Obama was doing the right thing in issuing waivers of the work requirement, the fact is they have no legal right to do it.

Newt Gingrich was on an RNC conference call and he was clear when they were writing the law the specifically made the work requirement unwaivable because, “we didn’t trust liberals” not to get rid of them as soon as they could.

Meanwhile, impeached former President Bill Clinton spins shamelessly (shocking, right?) in defense of Obama.

Clinton’s statement declared that, as president, he “granted waivers from the old law to 44 states to implement welfare to work strategies before the welfare reform passed.”

So Clinton seeks to use waivers he granted in the early 1990s to justify Obama’s effort to use waivers to overturn the 1996 law.

Clinton does not actually lie. He rightly says that the waivers he granted applied to the old law and program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), not to the new law and program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Although AFDC had permitted HHS to waive provisions relating to work, the TANF reform did not permit such waivers.

Clinton was in the White House for four and a half years after the passage of welfare reform, but he never once suggested he had authority to waive the work standards in the new TANF program — although he had vetoed an earlier version of the bill. It was obvious that no such waiver authority existed.

As Gabe noted in the headlines, Team Obama is running an ad countering the Romney ad. You don't do that unless the attack landed. Let's hope Mitt keeps it up.

posted by DrewM. at 09:24 AM

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