Clinton Wants to Help Families at the Bottom; Will She Change Her Mind on Welfare Reform? [View all]

[cali]

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But if she wants to be the candidate who champions the needs of vulnerable Americans, of those at the bottom of the economy instead of the top, of people of color and mothers and children, then she's going to have to wrestle with another legacy of her husband's that, at least at one time, had her support: welfare reform.

In 1996, President Clinton signed a bill that he said would "end welfare as we know it." And it did just that. It took the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program—which, at the time, was a cost-sharing program between the federal government and states to dispense cash benefits to poor mothers—and turned it into what we have today, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant. Ostensibly, its purpose was the same, but its block-grant structure meant that the federal government would no longer share a proportionate burden of the costs. Instead, TANF today hands a given sum to the states no matter what demand might be and issues them loose guidelines on how to administer the country's only cash-benefit program.

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The federal government hasn't increased the amount of money it gives to states since 1996, so that money has been eroded by 28 percent, thanks to inflation. Meanwhile, the few guidelines that states have to follow do little to incentivize them to help more poor people. Quite the opposite: They have every reason to try to reduce their rolls and free up more funds, which they often move around to cover things other than cash benefits. Sometimes that extra money goes to related programs like childcare and job training, but states often just use the money to plug budget holes. That means that the share of eligible families who actually get help through TANF keeps steadily falling, to the point where just 26 percent of poor families with children are enrolled, compared to 72 percent before reform went into effect.

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Hillary Clinton supported her husband's push for welfare reform, which may not be surprising, given how often she has stood by her man. But she also voiced support for it during her 2008 campaign, expressing no misgivings about how it turned out and telling The New York Times that she thought it was necessary and enormously successful.

That doesn't mean she won't shift her stance on the issue as she has on criminal justice reform and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The campaign didn't respond to a request for comment on whether she still supports it. But she needs to do some hard thinking about where she stands. In her first speech after she announced her campaign, she talked about her mother's experience growing up in poverty as a child. "No one deserves to grow up like that," she told the audience, saying this belief is part of her "core values." It's reflected in some of the stories in her launch video: a single mother moving to give her daughter a better education, a black couple preparing for their first baby, a young boy getting ready for a school play. Women, and particularly women of color, are more likely than men to live in poverty, and single mothers are particularly in need of support. These are the very people Clinton wants to vote for her.

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http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30761-clinton-wants-to-help-families-at-the-bottom-will-she-change-her-mind-about-welfare-reform

And many Clinton supporters frequently express outrage about those who just don't trust her evolution on issues.
What concrete evidence is there that she actually has changed her positions and isn't just pivoting left in the primary?