As
I sit here waiting for the call to start I can't help thinking what can he say
that hasn't been said.
They
just came on and said it would be a few more minutes. I have edited out music
and hold time.
"Thank
you for giving me a chance to talk about both the history of temporary
assistance for needy families and also why the Obama decision to unilaterally
waive the work requirements is so outrageous. The fact is, that Section 407 was
written not to be waivable. They used a gimmick in order to try to waive it but
it was deliberately written not to be waivable for a practical reason. The
people who were demanding that we have welfare reform to move people towards
work and study deeply distrusted Liberals who we were convinced would
immediately go back to the pre-1996 model and begin to waive things so that at
one time bed rest, getting a massage, you name it, a list of things that met
work requirements was absurd...
"Remember
that hardcore Liberals like Barack Obama were deeply opposed to the bill and
even after Bill Clinton agreed to sign the final version half of the Democratic
majority in the House voted no and if you go back and read what they were
saying, there's a deep, deep bitter opposition to work requirements on the
hardcore Left...So, we were consciously trying to create a framework in which
we were moving people and I think there is a general agreement today in fact
Obama himself even admitted that one of his mistakes was opposing it.
Ironically, at the time he was running for president and since his decision, he
decided to change the very thing that he was wrong to oppose.
"But
the fact is, most people today agree that this has been the most successful
Conservative reform in modern times. Two out of three people on welfare went to
work or went to school, incomes went up, child abuse dropped. The number of
children in poverty dropped 25%. And as families went to work they increased
their income, they got mobility back into society, left dependency. So when
Obama whose entire record as president has focused on increasing the number of
people on food stamps, increasing the amount of dependency, attacking the
people that have created jobs, when Obama unilaterally issues a work waiver,
frankly everybody on the Right that has been involved with this. I would say
Robert Recker at Heritage who has a very long history of helping to conceptualize
and develop this bill, all of these folks will be able to tell you, that our
immediate assumption is he is setting up a dramatic reduction in the work
requirement because it fits ideologically what they have been saying....
"The
two Republican governors have both said bluntly that they did not ask for this.
The White House hiding behind the two Republican governors is baloney. The
letter that Mitt Romney signed as governor along with twenty-eight other
Republican governors was in the legislative process not asking for Executive
Order and was actually referring to a bill that would have increased work
requirement from 50 to 70 percent. So for Obama who wants to reduce the work
requirement to hide behind attacking Romney's letter which was about a bill
that increased the work requirement just shows you the level of dishonesty the
Obama team is reduced to in their desperate effort to get reelected. So I'm
glad to try and set the record straight as somebody that was deeply involved.
"I
just want to say one last thing to Clinton being the nominating speaker at the
Democratic National Convention which I think is one of the most delicious
examples of irony in modern times. Bill Clinton as the Governor of Arkansas
learned that you have to negotiate with the Legislative Branch. Much of as he
would have liked to get around the Constitution. He was actually pretty
prepared to work with us and we negotiated very long and hard to get welfare
reform done. We negotiated for two and a half years to get the balanced budget
done in '97 done. There is just a remarkable difference between Clinton and
Obama and I actually think in many ways... that Obama is the anti-Clinton.
Clinton was trying to move the Party to the center, Obama has moved it to the
Left. Clinton balanced the budget with the policies we implemented in '97 led
to four straight balanced budgets, Obama has had the largest deficits in
American history. Clinton worked with the legislature in a bipartisan basis,
Obama has tried to use Executive Authority in ways I think are
unconstitutional. It really is kind of remarkable. And I hope that every
American when they watch Bill Clinton speak, will realize how much weaker and
ineffective as president Obama is than the man that is nominating him
was."
