Obama Sidestepping the Law

[grand pubah]

The investigative arm of Congress has found that the Obama administration circumvented Congress in removing the work requirement from welfare reform.

The findings from the Government Accountability Office were trumpeted by members of the House Ways and Means Committee, who are upset with the removal of the work requirement (see earlier story). The findings echo those reached by The Heritage Foundation, which started issuing materials on this matter in July.

Heritage research associate Rachel Sheffield shares the information discovered by her organization.

"The Obama administration on July 12th issued these waivers to the work requirement, part of the TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] law, and essentially by doing so was sidestepping the law, sidestepping the Congress and promoting their own policies, which are gutting the successful welfare reforms of 1996," she details.

Sheffield offers a few examples of these successes.

"After welfare reform was passed in 1996, we saw the welfare rolls drop by 50 percent within just five years," she notes. "We also saw the poverty rate decline. The child poverty rate plummeted, particularly the poverty rate for African-American children, which declined to its lowest level in U.S. history."

Critics of the work requirement removal have also pointed out that President Obama said he was in favor of the work requirement during his 2008 campaign for the White House. A video of those remarks began making its way around the Internet following the administration's recent changes to welfare reform.

[grand pubah]

A policy expert says Barack Obama -- who views himself as "a historical figure who's far larger than a mere Congress or legislation" -- has ended welfare reform as most people know it.

Robert Rector helped write a substantial portion of the welfare reform law of 1996 and now serves as senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation's DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society. In his words, "These changes effectively end welfare reform." (See Rector's related National Review article)

"The critical work sections of the law are to be replaced by something designed at the whim of the HHS bureaucracy," he details. But Rector asserts that the administration had no justification for removing the work requirement. "And because it's incredibly popular, they can't really be honest about what they're doing," he notes.

"The fact of the matter is that the left wing of the Democratic Party all voted against welfare reform 15 years ago, and they have continued to fight against these types of work standards, regarding them as slave fare for 15 years."

With this latest move, says the Heritage fellow, officials have gone through the back door and tossed the legislation in the trash, while coming up with their own definition of work. In the past, state governments have defined work as things like listening to motivational tapes or even reading a novel. Rector calls that "a big sham," but he expects that line of thinking will continue.

"The act that the Republicans put in and that [President Bill] Clinton signed is extremely popular," Rector says. "And what happened when ... able-bodied welfare recipients [were required] to work, or prepare for work, or at least look for a job -- which is what the act does -- the welfare case load in that program fell about 60 percent almost immediately, employment surged, and child poverty among the affected groups dropped dramatically."

Upon hearing that President Obama was going to use the HHS waiver authority to get rid of the work standards, the policy expert says his reaction was, "He can't do that, because I remember we clearly wrote in the legislation 'you cannot use waivers to stop workfare.'"

But he laments that that does not matter to the president, as he "views himself as a sort of Ghandi or Napoleon -- a historical figure who's far larger than a mere Congress or legislation."

[eaglefan]

unfortunately Bill Clinton is now caving in to this presidential imposter. What a sellout.

[DinarMillionaire]

This Dicktator apparently can do whatever he wants to do. The Congress has no balls to stop him or impeach him, as they have had numerous occasions in which to do so. He circumvents Congress, the Constitution, the laws of the land (DOMA , Immigration, etc., etc.) and the American people, whenever he wants to and nothing ever happens to him. The Dicktator has GOT to go.