'A Moment of Shame' ~ Bernie V Hillary on the DLC/Republican 'Welfare Reform Bill'

[mntleo2]

113. Yeah with Mcjobs ~ Cmon!

I can tell you as a fact, Welfare DeFormed forced mostly single mothers in to permanent abject poverty. Do you know who wrote that bill? Robert Rector from the Heritage Foundation. Do you know why? Let me tell you a little story about Mr Rector and his ilk:

In the early 1990s Mr Rector attended a community meeting in DC where some African American women who were graduates of George Washington University kicked his ass in debate. So he ran home crying and wrote "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act" (the REAL name of Welfare DeFormed) ~ perhaps the most ironically named bill since it was written and signed into law by some of the most irresponsible white men ever.

After licking his wounds Rector decided the "outrage" was because these women, mostly single African American mothers, had been "using the System" by being on Welfare and attending college and getting a higher education. He had *no* such problem with his rich friends sitting around their pools collecting tax free dividends ~ but these uppity women? This had to be fixed!

Know who those women were? They were women who had fled the Southern countryside from communities where their only hope was to be maids and cooks in "The Big House" for the likes of Rector and his species ~ where Rector thought they belonged. Certainly not Doctors, lawyers and policy makers!

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act forbids the poor and single moms from attending college. Under its mandates and while HRC was in the Senate, she applauded when Rudy Gulillani undermined good unions jobs by replacing them with "welfare to work" participants who worked for less than 50 cents an hour. This spread to other parts of the country and are in affect to this day. She stood by while her own constituents threw waffles at her NYC office because she "waffled" on the policies harming their families and refused to make a stand for these participants to get decent wages and access to college.

And now more than 20 years later and another generation that has grown up under these ghastly conditions, they are still in affect ~ and HRC nor any of her friends have done a thing about it. They do not have a clue about what happened to these people, the only thing they count is how the welfare rolls have dropped ~ they do not want to see where these people went. Well I know where they went ~ into the ghettos, into chronic homelessness, into dead end McJobs, into early deaths from horrid working conditions, their ghettos with polluted environments infesting their children. I know because I have been attending to these things and speaking about them for over 30 years ~ while it falls on deaf ears.

So sure, "Unemployment plummeted". Yeah right. To flood the market with McJobs that did not even pay the rent.

We tried to tell you people that this law was using the poor as canaries in the mine and that the middle class was next ~ were we heard then? Hell no! Now when the upper classes have been kicked in the ass they are whining, "B-b-b-ut I worked haaard!" Like the poor didn't work hard too? God damn bet they did!

Furthermore Rector did not even know what real "work" is nor will these elitists, including HRC ever get it until they humble themselves and realize the truth about what work is and isn't. Often I hear from people that well, "They shouldn't have to support other people's children..."

I ask them, "Then with your thinking, why should our kids support YOU with the Social Security and Medicare they will pay, with your wars they will fight and die in, with your infrastructure, and with YOU when you can no longer care for yourself? With that thinking then our kids should give all that money coming out of their paychecks to US and to hell with you, since we did all the work and sacrifice raising them without any support, right?" They always slink away with that response because they know it is true... whether or not they choose to have children of their own, these kids from the generations that come after them, WILL support them and they know it. Who the hell do they think is doing the hard work to raise these children for their comforts? Casper The Friendly Ghost?

Furthermore those few well paying "jooooobs" went away with a puff of smoke after all of them were exported overseas ~ and now thanks to "The Personal Responsibilities and Work Opportunist Act (Welfare DeFormed) those in poverty do not have a chance in hell to escape their plight ~ and these conditions are pulling the middle class down with them since now all those "McJooooobs" are the only thing there is.

Just ask HRC's Walmart CEO friends from the board she was on about how much they have profited with tax breaks and all the goodies they have enjoyed from the poverty and suffering they impose on their hard working employees whom they lock into their stores and force them to work for free.

Give. Me. A. Break.

Cat in Seattle long time activist of 30+ years for our Social Safety Net and
Board member of POWER, http://www.mamapower.org