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September 16, 2006
The One Thing Clinton Did "Right"...
... thanks entirely to the Republican led Congress, was indeed signing the Welfare Reform Act which, predictably, drew a lot of animosity from the entire spectrum of his entitlement spending afficionado, liberal constituency.
For all that Clinton got wrong, welfare reform was one thing he ended up getting very right. He had vetoed two previous reform bills passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, and when the House and Senate came back with a third bill, liberal pressure for another veto was intense. But political strategist Dick Morris warned Clinton that a third veto could cost him the 1996 election, and so, pronouncing it a "historic opportunity to do what is right," he signed the bill.The chorus of outrage from the left was deafening. Marian Wright Edelman, chairman of the Children's Defense Fund, warned that Clinton's signature would "leave a moral blot on his presidency and on our nation." Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont denounced the bill as "anti-family, anti child, and mean-spirited." Hugh Price, head of the National Urban League, declared that "Washington has decided to end the War on Poverty and begin a war on children." Ted Kennedy labeled the new law "legislative child abuse." Daniel Patrick Moynihan went so far as to call it "the most brutal act of social policy we have known since Reconstruction."
As usual, the left was right in there with predictions of the most dire consequences, desperate as always to spend every dime possible of The American Taxpayer's money on wasteful social programs in order to keep their bread and butter voting block intact.
Well, lo and behold, it turns out that these people didn't really need the Democrats after all, once they faced the necessity of standing on their own two feet they did just fine by themselves...
Over and over it was said that welfare reform would wreak social devastation, throwing vast numbers of people, including a million children, into poverty.Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey fretted that poor children would be reduced to "begging for money, begging for food, and even . . . engaging in prostitution." Peter Edelman, the husband of Marian Wright Edelman and an assistant secretary of health and human services, resigned in protest and condemned the new law in a long article — "The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done" — in The Atlantic. It predicted, among other things, "more malnutrition and more crime, increased infant mortality, and increased drug and alcohol abuse . . . increased family violence and abuse against children and women." All in all, he concluded, this "terrible legislation" would do "serious injury to American children."
It did none of those things.
The left loves to use childrens' wellbeing wherever it's convenient in their political arguments, which is interesting in itself as they also support murdering the same children, while still in the foetus stage, wherever possible.
Posted by Seth at September 16, 2006 07:35 PM
