The truth about Obama ending workfare.

This is a must read article from Heritage.org. Please do enjoy it.

Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform

Amy Payne

August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am

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The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful 1996 reform’s work requirements is “categorically false” and “blatantly dishonest.” Even former President Bill Clinton, who signed the reform into law, came out parroting the Obama team’s talking points and saying the charge was “not true.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley first broke the story on July 12 that Obama’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) had rewritten the Clinton-era reform to undo the work requirements, in a move that legal experts Todd Gaziano and Robert Alt determined was patently illegal.
The Administration’s new argument has two parts: denying the Obama Administration’s actions and claiming that Republican governors, including Mitt Romney, tried to do the same thing. In essence, “We did not do what you’re saying, but even if we did, some Republicans did it, too.” Both parts of this argument are easily debunked.
Obama Administration Claim #1: We Didn’t Gut Work Requirements
Ever since the 1996 law passed, Democratic leaders have attempted (unsuccessfully) to repeal welfare’s work standards, blocking reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) and attempting to weaken the requirements. Unable to eliminate “workfare” legislatively, the Obama HHS claimed authority to grant waivers that allow states to get around the work requirements.
Humorously, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now asserts that the Administration abolished the TANF work requirements to increase work.
HHS now claims that states receiving a waiver must “commit that their proposals will move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work compared to the state’s prior performance.” But given the normal turnover rate in welfare programs, the easiest way to increase the number of people moving from “welfare to work” is to increase the number entering welfare in the first place.
Bogus statistical ploys like these were the norm before the 1996 reform. The law curtailed use of sham measures of success and established meaningful standards: Participating in work activities meant actual work activities, not “bed rest” or “reading” or doing one hour of job search per month; reducing welfare dependence meant reducing caseloads. Now those standards are gone.
Obama’s HHS claims authority to overhaul every aspect of the TANF work provisions (contained in section 407), including “definitions of work activities and engagement, specified limitations, verification procedures and the calculation of participation rates.” In other words, the whole work program. Sebelius’s HHS bureaucracy declared the existing TANF law a blank slate on which it can design any policy it chooses.
Obama Administration Claim #2: Even If We Did, the Republicans Tried It, Too
Though the Obama Administration is claiming it is not trying to get around the work requirements, it is also claiming that a group of Republican governors tried to do the same thing in 2005. Clinton also said in his statement yesterday that “the recently announced waiver policy was originally requested” by Republican governors.
Heritage welfare expert Robert Rector addressed this claim back on July 19. As Rector explains:

But [the governors'] letter makes no mention at all of waiving work requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. In fact, the legislation promoted in the letter—the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) Act—actually would have toughened the federal work standards. It proposed raising the mandatory participation rates imposed on states from 50 percent to 70 percent of the adult TANF caseload and increasing the hours of required work activity.
The governors’ letter actually contradicts the Administration’s main argument: If the law has always permitted HHS to waive the work requirements, then why didn’t the governors just request waivers from then-President George W. Bush? Why would legislation be needed?
Two reasons: First, it has been clear for 15 years that the TANF law did not permit HHS to waive the work requirements. Second, the Republican governors were not seeking to waive the work requirements in the first place.

Obama’s Evolution from Welfare to Work and Back
President Obama had a convenient change of heart regarding welfare reform when it was time to run for President. In 1998, when he was an Illinois state senator, Obama said:

I was not a huge supporter of the federal plan that was signed in 1996. Having said that, I do think that there is a potential political opportunity that arose out of welfare reform. And that is to desegregate the welfare population—meaning the undeserving poor, black folks in cities, from the working poor—deserving, white, rural as well as suburban.

The same year, he reiterated that “the 1996 legislation I did not entirely agree with and probably would have voted against at the federal level.”
But in 2008, when he was running for President, Obama said he had changed his mind about welfare reform: “I was much more concerned 10 years ago when President Clinton initially signed the bill that this could have disastrous results….It had—it worked better than, I think, a lot of people anticipated. And, you know, one of the things that I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to work as a centerpiece of any social policy.”
One of his 2008 campaign ads touted “the Obama record: moved people from welfare to work” and promised that as President, he would “never forget the dignity that comes from work.”
This evolution is unsurprising, considering the vast majority of Americans favor requiring welfare recipients to work.
President Obama has finally accomplished what Democrats have been trying to do for years. He has even gotten President Clinton to turn his back on one of the signature achievements of his Administration to give him political cover—which Clinton was quick to do. In 1996, Clinton had to compromise and allow the tough work requirements to get the legislation passed.
Both Presidents have now revealed their true feelings about welfare—and there’s no denying it.


I always welcome any input on these matters especially from the Leftists. Just keep it civil, factual and truthful and I will not remove it (I know many of you Liberals struggle with a civil, factual and truthful discussion see
Why Liberals Always Resort To Name-Calling?).

The Obama White house and mainstream media are ignoring obvious statistics!

The Obama White House and Mainstream Media are ignoring obvious statistics!

Mark Levin on his radio show on May 16th brought up these interesting numbers and statistics. The numbers do not lie so the Leftists in the Media are ignoring the UN-ignorable truths. The devastating predictable results that the Marxists moving FORWARD past Capitalism to their Utopian dream being attempted once again via their lame old tired unsustainable  re-distribution Ponzi scheme.

Of course the are repackaging their tired old 300 year old lies with nice new names while demonizing those that resist. Their completely false and trumped up class warfare, race baiting and war against women.

Saint Patric's day, Failed Socialism and Irish Americans.

This is an old article I stumbled upon in the Irish Echo that nine years later is more true then ever and felt was an appropriate subject for Saint Patric's day.

Failed socialist ideology is alive and well in NYC

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE THE IRISH ECHO DATED: April, 02-08, 2003

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If anybody thinks that the failed ideology of socialism perished with the fall of the Communist Bloc, they are mistaken. Cultivated by the tax, fine and spend philosophies of the left, this malignant ideology increasingly paralyzes New York City. It thrives as it devours the city’s economy, parasitically feeds off the body politic and slowly transforms the metropolis into a banana republic.
New York City’s middle class works harder and longer to sustain itself, to feed and shelter its families, to educate its children, to carve out a foothold for the future. Hardworking middle-class families are the true engine of our city’s economy, the people who make our city tick. As the payee of all manner of taxes, the inevitable victim of an A-to-Z of fines and penalties, the middle class is the unwitting financial foundation for the New York City socialist fiasco.
Too busy running from pillar to post making a living, John and Jane Solid Citizen have become disengaged from the political system and are unaware of the absurdities that are being implemented in their name. The left-wing elitists contemptuously dismiss them as inconsequential. Unlike the community activists, the professional whiners and the permanent dependency class, John and Jane Solid Citizen go about their lives quietly, without fuss. Their values and ethos are increasingly dismissed and marginalized. They are merely the means of providing financial fodder for the insatiable appetite of the voracious socialist beast.
There is the hardworking Irish-American family of Woodside. Dad works days, mom works nights. They struggle to keep their heads above water. They strive to give their kids the best. They sacrifice to send their children to Catholic school. However, our left-wing elitist mayor, Mike Bloomberg, and the socialist ideologues of the City Council need revenue to pour into the bottomless pit of designs, programs and patronage. The family’s car is ticketed and towed, on the word of a creative, quota-driven revenue hack, for allegedly violating some inconsequential parking ordinance. Regardless of culpability, a substantial chunk of a week’s salary must be forfeited in order to redeem the vehicle. The apparatchiks are confident that the family will accept its fate, rather than compounding their loss in an uphill fight with City Hall.
In order to evade the increasingly draconian parking polizei, Irish-American entrepreneur, Queens-based Sean Citizen has taken to making his Manhattan deliveries during the ungodly hours. Yet the apparatchiks will not be cheated of their prey. In the early hours, while momentarily double-parked on a deserted Manhattan cross street, a revenue hack emerges from the darkness to serve a $105 summons. In a close-margin business, a few more summonses like that and Sean Citizen may very well be bled dry. However, in the grand design of pseudo Republican Bloomberg and the City Council, the small entrepreneur is expendable.
The Irish-American publican has spent thousands installing a state of the art air filtration system only to be obliged to banish outside, like degenerates, his nicotine-inhaling clientele. As the smoking population is increasingly ostracized, his business falls of by as much as 30 percent. Just another small-business owner to be sacrificed on the left’s altar of political correctness.
Then there is the house-proud Irish-American family in Maspeth. The house is spotless, garden neat and trimmed, and the sidewalk is swept conscientiously twice a day, out of a sense of civic pride rather than fear of sanction. Passerby Lou Litter Lout discards his garbage on the pathway. The sanitation police materializes with summons in hand, not for Lou Litter Lout but for “deep pockets,” the innocent property owner. More hard-earned middle-class dollars for the bottomless socialist pit.
In November 2001, we elected a left-wing Democrat to lead Gotham. Bloomberg was victorious on the anybody-but-Mark Green ticket. Had he not conveniently changed his party label, had he not expended substantial largesse, he would never have occupied City Hall. Though disturbingly familiar with his left-wing credentials, many of us, Irish American Republicans and conservative Democrats alike, deluded ourselves into thinking that, as a highly successful entrepreneur, he would successfully lead the city through what we knew would be challenging times.
Bloomberg is intent on transforming our city into a socialist nanny state where every move, and perhaps every thought, of the citizen will be minutely regulated and oppressively taxed. Devoid of any original or innovative concept, his economic policy consists of mandating yet another element of the human experience to be taxed, of doubling or tripling existing levies and of resurrecting antiquated laws for the sole purpose of picking middle class pockets.
Through it all, his arrogance, and that of his apparatchiks, has been breathtaking. “If they don’t like it they don’t’ have to come,” is becoming mayoral press secretary Ed Skyler’s standard refrain. As the left envelops Gotham in its destructive shroud, Bloomberg, consistent to a fault, implies that if the middle class “don’t like it” it can leave.
Enthusiastic co-conspirators in the quest to tax, fine, levy and ideologically eradicate the middle class are the City Council members. Term limits have given us a council of political-party apprentices. Realizing that that their council careers are finite, they use their terms of office solely as a means to curry favor with their political masters, to ensure their elevation in the Democratic hierarchy. Representing the needs, interests and values of their constituents is an after thought.
The opinions expressed represent those of the writer, not necessarily those of the Irish Echo.

So what have the Democrats brought us since they have been in power starting in 2006!

My rant today is on the unintended consequences that always result from the actions of the Leftists. Detroit comes to mind as a great example. The left has had complete control of that region since the twenties and look where it has gotten them. Greece, Spain, Ireland are all showing the unsustainable predictable result.

The Democrats ruled the Senate and House of Representatives from 2006 till 2008 then they controlled all three political branches of government (the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives) from 2008 till 2010 when the (Republicans took control of only the house). The Democrats have control of the White House and Congress from 2010 till the present. So with that all being said they own this mess we are currently in. It is time to live within our means, reduce the size and scope of the government.

A simple measure of Government is as percentage of GDP we are currently at 24% we need to reduce this level to no more then 20% of our GDP as this has been a time proven health sustainable maximum level government size.

So what have the Democrats brought us since they have been in power starting in 2006!

1. Obamacare (sure to be a drag on the economy for decades)
2. Spendulus Bills in the trillions (that will be sure to be felt by our grand children)
3. Dodd-Frank bill (sure to raise banking costs and reduce lending of available money)
4. 99 weeks of unemployment insurance (sure to prolong unemployment and put further tax burden on businesses)
5. Quantitative easing 1 and 2 (sure to bring on inflation)
6. 8% plus Unemployment with
7. Record food stamp dependency (why Obama's picture should be on the food stamp)
8. 50% of the population paying no income tax (sure to make it difficult to get voters to make the needed tough decisions that have to be made) 

I have pasted a great article below by John Merline of Investors Daily for your consideration.

Dependency Index Surges 23% Under President Obama

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 02/08/2012 08:02 AM ET

 View Enlarged Image

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.
The conservative think tank's annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that were "traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families."
The two-year increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show.
The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps, the study found.
"You can't get around the fact that policy decisions made over the past two years, on top of those made over the past several decades, are having a large effect on the pace of growth of the index," said William Beach, who authored the Heritage study.
Government dependence has climbed steadily since 1962, when the index stood at 19. By 1980, the index had risen to 100. It stood at 294 in 2010, the last year for which the data are available. D.C.-based Heritage has produced the index for nine years.
The report also found that spending on "dependence programs" accounts for more than 70% of the federal budget. That, too, is up dramatically. In 1990, for example, the figure stood at 48.5%, and in 1962 just over a quarter of federal spending went to dependence programs.
At the same time, fewer Americans pay income taxes, the report notes. Almost half (49.5%) didn't pay income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which the researchers have data. Back in the late 1960s, only 12% of Americans escaped the income tax burden.
Other findings:
The number of people dependent on the federal government shot up 7.5% in the past two years.
In 2010, for the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income.
The dependency index has dipped only seven times in the past 49 years, three of which were under President Reagan and two under President Clinton.
Some observers say the rise in dependence under Obama is merely a reflection of the deep and long recession.
But Beach says his team's research shows that economic effects account for only one-fifth of the change in the index.
In addition, the index shot up 8% in 2010, a year when the economy grew by 3%.
Also, in the wake of the 1981-82 recession the dependence index climbed only 6%, then fell the very next year. That early-'80s slump was nearly as long as the so-called Great Recession (16 months vs. 18 months) and saw unemployment rise higher (peaking at 10.8% vs. 10%).
The lingering high jobless rate during the slow economic recovery under Obama could also explain dependency's rise. It's also possible that the growth in federal dependency programs is partly to blame for the ongoing jobs recession, not just the result of it.
As the chart above shows, the time it's taken for employment to reach its pre-recession peak has climbed the past four decades, right along with the growth in federal dependency. The current jobs recession hit a post-World War II record of 48 months in January, with payrolls still 5.6 million below their January 2008 high.
Research seems to validate this connection. Various studies have shown that extending unemployment benefits can keep unemployment rates higher than they would otherwise have been.
Obama's own former economic adviser, Larry Summers, noted in the 1999 Concise Encyclopedia of Economics that "government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment ... by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work."

Did you notice something missing from President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday?

I received this great letter from the Americans For Prosperity so I wanted to share it with all of you. If you can afford it please do give them a donation as this is a fine Conservative organization that does good work for the cause.

Did you notice something missing from President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday?

President Obama forgot to mention his biggest "accomplishments": sticking the American people with liberal policies, like ObamaCare and the $814 billion dollar Stimulus, that destroy jobs, pile up debt, burden our small businesses with runaway regulations, and focus on redistributing wealth rather than make our entire economy stronger.

Z AC Tech, I hope you saw our "Obama Forgets" effort last week—a critical initiative that put the spotlight on President Obama’s record, and drew focus to the failed liberal policy agenda he seems to "forget" whenever he’s giving yet another speech.

President Obama knows the only way to save face and gain support is by making sure Americans also "forget" about the policies during his three failed years as President.

And that’s why I’m asking you for help today. With President Obama determined to hide from his record, can you help AFP remind the American people about the negative impact Obama’s policies have had on our economic freedom and prosperity?

Please click here to make a donation of $25, $50, $100 or more to AFP—and help us make sure the American people remember what Obama wants us to forget and put grassroots pressure on the Left.

Z AC Tech, thanks to the hard work and support of activists like you, even Obama himself is running scared about the massive effect AFP’s efforts will have on his policy agenda.

In fact, just last week, the Obama campaign launched its first TV ad of 2012.

And, instead of addressing the biggest problems facing our country, the ad directly attacked Americans for Prosperity.

That’s right—the first ad of President Obama’s re-election campaign was all about AFP, smearing us as "secretive" and attacking our 1.9 million grassroots activists—hardworking American taxpayers like you.

President Obama’s concerned because AFP has the most well-informed, the best-mobilized, and the most determined group of activists out there—and we’re going to keep fighting until we cut through President Obama’s “forgetfulness” and bring the truth right to the American people.

And already, AFP has put the groundwork in place to build on our success—and guarantee even more policy victories in 2012.

AFP’s new Field Program will take action in 16 critical states, 204 counties, and will rally not just our 1.9 million AFP activists nationwide—but help attract the millions of like-minded Americans who aren’t yet fighting alongside you and me on the side of freedom.

With 80 team members, based right in communities like yours, we will lead the charge with rallies, events, block walking, door knocking, phone banking, and paid and earned media on TV, radio, print, and the internet.

Z AC Tech, you know the kind of results AFP gets—and, in 2012, we’re going to make the biggest impact in our organization’s entire history.

But we can’t make the most of this effort without your help.

Please click here to make your much-needed donation of $25, $50, $100 or more to AFP—and help us keep momentum through 2012.

Thank you very much for everything you’ve done—and I know that, with your help, we will bring freedom and prosperity back to America.

Sincerely,

Tim Phillips, President
Americans for Prosperity

P.S. You know you're making a difference when the President of the United States attacks you in his first TV ad of 2012.  Let's make sure we answer his dishonest attack with the truth about his failed big government record.  Can you help us remind the American people of everything Obama’s "forgotten"? Click here to donate $25, $50, $100 or more to AFP—and help us expose the truth behind Obama’s failed liberal policy agenda.

Rubio in letter to Obama: You are turning America into a 'deadbeat nation'

Warning if you click on the link above for the article by by Jason Mattera do not down load the free viewer for the Rubio letter as it will put a bunch of unwanted aggressive programs on your computer!

In a scathing letter sent to Barack Obama this morning, Senator Marco Rubio said that under the President’s first term in office, “more and more people have come to believe that America is becoming a deadbeat nation.”

Rubio went on to pledge that he would challenge any further increase in the debt ceiling, arguing that “we [Congress] need to make it routine to actually spend no more than we take in.” In the letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, the Florida Senator said that President Obama’s upcoming request to increase the debt ceiling by a whopping $1.2 trillion will cause the nation’s public debt to surpass the $16 trillion mark.

“I will oppose your request to continue borrowing and spending recklessly.”

President Obama is expected to request the new borrowing power from Congress once the Senate and House return from their holiday recess.

The president must notify Congress when the debt closes within $100 billion of the ceiling, according to the Budget Control Act passed in August.  This triggers for Congress their only available option to block an increase, in this case $1.2 trillion, by passing legislation. However, even if the House and Senate do that, the president can still veto their objections.  In short, there is very little Republicans can do in a Democratic-controlled Senate to block an increase.

If President Obama led the charge to reduce the country’s unsustainable debt in mid 2011 rather than punt the enterprise to a “Super Committee,” asserted Rubio, we’d already be on a pathway toward economic growth and prosperity. "Unfortunately, the first three years of your presidency have been a profile in leadership failure."

The letter concludes: “America deserves leaders who will stand front and center, level with the American people about our challenges and offer real solutions to solve them.  Instead of simply asking for another debt ceiling increase, I urge you to come forward with a real plan to tackle our debt in 2012.”

This is the latest salvo in the debt ceiling debate in Washington.

The Florida Republican’s warning letter to Obama can be read in its entirety below.



This letter by Marco Rubio is a must read!