[Vision2020] Mr. Romney Hits Bottom on Welfare

[Art Deco]

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August 8, 2012
Mr. Romney Hits Bottom on Welfare

Mitt Romney’s campaign has hit new depths of truth-twisting with its
accusation that President Obama plans to “gut welfare reform” by ending
federal work requirements. The claim is blatantly false, but it says a
great deal about Mr. Romney’s increasingly desperate desire to define the
president as something he is not.

For years, both Republican and Democratic governors have sought waivers
from the 1996 work requirements in the welfare program, sometimes to tailor
programs to their states’ needs, or to experiment with demonstration
programs. Last year, an aide to Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor of
Nevada, asked to discuss
flexibility<http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/NevadaFlexibilityLetter8-2-11.pdf>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.

Utah, also led by a Republican
governor<http://www.scribd.com/doc/100023383/Utah-Administrative-Flexibility-Letter>,
asked for relief from some federal reporting requirements, and urged that
refugee families be treated differently when seeking welfare benefits
because of cultural barriers.

Reacting to these kinds of requests, the Department of Health and Human
Services issued a memo last
month<http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html>granting
states some flexibility. If states can find better ways to get
welfare recipients into jobs, they can extend training periods or grant
certain kinds of exceptions. The department “is only interested in
approving waivers if the state can explain in a compelling fashion why the
proposed approach may be a more efficient or effective means to promote
employment entry, retention, advancement, or access to jobs,” according to
the memo. Kathleen Sebelius, the health secretary,
said<http://www.scribd.com/doc/100482692/Sen-Hatch-TANF-7-18>all
waivers would have to move 20 percent more people from welfare to
work.

This was hardly an earthshaking change. In fact, it was exactly the kind of
flexibility sought in 2005 by 29 Republican
governors<http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/112/2005_Romney_Letter.pdf>,
including Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But conservative ideologues
immediately waved the memo around to prove that Mr. Obama wanted to return
to the bad old days of welfare, and inevitably Mr. Romney’s campaign
followed suit.

“Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train
for a job,” says the latest Romney
ad<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F4LtTlktm0&feature=player_embedded>.
“They just send you your welfare check, and ‘welfare to work’ goes back to
being plain old welfare.” Mr. Romney himself doubled
down<http://www.mittromney.com/news/press/2012/08/mitt-romney-we-cant-allow-our-country-become-nation-dependency>on
Wednesday, saying flatly in Des Moines that Mr. Obama has “removed the
requirement of work from welfare.”

This could not be more wrong, but this is what happens when a flailing
campaign searches for a wedge issue to gain popularity among blue-collar
voters. Mr. Romney’s empty promises to magically turn around the economy
are losing effectiveness, so why not vilify welfare recipients and portray
the president as coddling them?

That approach was favored by an earlier generation of Republican
operatives, and it helped divide the country into warring political
classes. Mr. Romney, no less cynical, seems bent on repeating the past.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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