Political Rifts Over Bill Clinton’s Welfare Law Resurface as Aid Shrinks
Note: I would prefer to post this in GD, but I was informed that if anyone alerts on an op about Clinton or Sanders, it automatically gets locked
With little debate, Arizona last year became the only state to impose a one-year limit on cash assistance to needy families, cutting the maximum duration of benefits for the third time since 2010. The newest limit has begun to hit home for welfare recipients who are learning that their benefits are nearing an end.
Anna Robinson, the mother of a 4-year-old boy, received cash assistance for about eight months in 2013, until she landed a job at a call center for a pet-supply retailer. Then her job was automated and her position was eliminated. She will receive about four months of cash payments before they dry up.
“I was really proud of myself when I got a job, but now I need help again,” Ms. Robinson said as she picked up a box of free groceries at St. Mary’s Food Bank in West Phoenix.
As the 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton’s welfare law approaches, the impact of its requirements is being felt more than ever, with the political rifts that it exposed in 1996 resurfacing on the 2016 campaign trail.
In her 2003 autobiography, “Living History,” Hillary Clinton said she agreed with her husband’s decision to sign the welfare bill, even though it “outraged some of our most loyal supporters.” The old program of Aid to Families With Dependent Children, created in the New Deal, “helped to create generations of welfare-dependent Americans,” she wrote.
Her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, fiercely opposed the law as a House member then and continues to press his case against it.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/us/politics/welfare-arizona-bill-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0
Yeah, Hillary is such a great advocate for women and children. Or not.
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