We were only somewhat surprised to see that President Obama has decided to more or less single-handedly repeal the welfare reform law of ’96 by allowing states to dispense with the requirement that able-bodied adults work, seek work, take classes, or undergo drug and alcohol counseling in order to receive money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
It is not surprising that Obama would favor such a policy, as the more doctrinaire liberals have always hated the welfare reform law, especially the work requirements at the heart of it, and we can’t think of many liberals more doctrinaire than Obama. The undisputed fact that the law led to a decline in welfare dependency only exacerbated the disdain of liberals such as Obama, apparently because they prefer having an ever-expanding constituency of voters dependent on some form of government assistance or another.
It is surprising, though, that Obama would announce such a policy at this point in what looks to be a difficult re-election campaign. Aside from the move being bad policy, and of dubious legality, it seems to be horrible politics.
The welfare reform law is quite popular, after all, and somehow the underlying New Testament notion that those who will not work shall not eat also retains a widespread appeal. Although President Bill Clinton twice vetoed the bill before being bullied by Dick Morris’ polling into signing it, he now happily takes credit for its many positive outcomes and most people regard it as one of the great accomplishments of his supposedly golden age of governance. Because the welfare rolls declined dramatically without a commensurate increase in Charles Dickensesque stories of children starving in the streets, the bill has become one of the few things to come out of Washington that is generally regarded as a success.
Worse yet, so far as the political implications for Obama are concerned, the new policy can only bolster his reputation as a “food stamp president” intent on making an electoral majority of Americans dependent on the government. Unless Obama can achieve that goal by November, which may or may not be possible, the voters picking up the tab will likely be hard to woo.
Perhaps Obama figured that the Friday announcement of the new policy would be largely overlooked, and that a compliant press would prefer to focus on some 20-year-old documents that Bain Capital filed with the SEC, but his recent behavior suggests that he doesn’t much care if people do notice. His campaign is increasingly blatant in its appeal to class resentments and more unabashedly liberal in its rhetoric, so the new policy might be part of a deliberate strategy based on the assumption that a welfare state is what the country wants.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 