Barack Obama Repeals Clinton's Welfare Reform Act

"I pulled another fast one, and no one noticed!"

Washington DC, July 13, 2012. In a low key and unpublicized move yesterday President Barack Hussein Obama, D-Kenya, completely gutted President Clinton's Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

By releasing an official policy directive President Obama has essentially rewritten Clinton's welfare reform which had required a work requirement.

Obama's directive now allows the Department of Health and Human Services to waive the work requirement at the heart of welfare reform.

That reform, originally vetoed but later signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is widely viewed as the most successful policy initiative in a generation and the major achievement of Clinton's presidency. 

Under the law, the growth in welfare rolls was reversed and millions of people moved from welfare to work.
Despite its success, however, many liberals remain opposed to reform.  For example, in the years immediately after passage of the law, Barack Obama himself pledged to do all he could to undo it.  And now, he has done exactly that.

President Obama’s directive means “the end of welfare reform as we know it.”  In coming days, look for the Romney campaign to press that case — showcasing what Obama has done in office, even as the president fixates on an imaginary narrative of what happened at Bain Capital years ago.

"Something is wrong with that boy"

This morning, with Obama’s action still largely unreported, Mitt Romney released a statement calling Obama’s move “completely misdirected.”

“President Obama now wants to strip the established work requirements from welfare,” Romney said.

“The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The president’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”