Asserts the moderate-liberal commentator: "In an ad that started running Monday, the narrator tells us that President Obama is turning back the clock on the landmark welfare reform of 1996, which is what the 1980s’ workfare experiments paved the way for. It’s nonsense. Since 1996, states have been required to put a five-year cap on welfare dependency, with federal funds predicated upon getting people jobs. The Romney ad has it that under Obama, 'you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.'"
He continues: "Make no mistake: This description is very much what welfare was like in America from the late 1960s until 1996. What began during the Depression as a program for widows was fashioned into an open-ended handout in which no one was concerned in any real way with getting recipients jobs. In the ’60s, dedicated radicals actively encouraged poor people to sign up for welfare, and rolls exploded nationwide. It’s all right there in the history books. This was the 'welfare as we know it' that Bill Clinton promised to end."
More: "There remain people who actually think we should go back to that kind of welfare. Obama is not one of them. All that has happened here is that the Department of Health and Human Services wants to give states more latitude in how they choose to get clients working. State flexibility from burdensome federal regulations is usually something that Republicans say they want. Isn’t it?"
John McWhorter: "Romney's Welfare Attack On President Obama Is Despicable"
