What was Obama doing when Clinton signed Welfare Reform in 1996? Joining a leftist third party that opposed it !!!

By Stanley Kurtz at NRO:

In 1996, the year President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform bill, Obama became a member of a leftist third party called the New Party. The Obama campaign denied this in 2008, and continues to deny it today, although contemporaneous documents now definitively prove it. The core purpose of the New Party was to pull the country to the left of the Clinton Democrats. Opposition to the welfare reform act virtually defined the New Party’s position.

The most important plank in the New Party’s platform was a guaranteed minimum income for all adults, regardless of whether they worked. In 1996, when Obama joined the party and gained its endorsement, candidates had to speak up in favor of the party platform to seal the deal. Obama also knew and had personally discussed the goals of the New Party with the party’s national leader, Joel Rogers, who was preoccupied with the guaranteed minimum income provision.

It matters that Obama has historically been on the far-left side of liberal on this issue. Obama was willing to go so far as to join a leftist third party at the very moment when Clinton signed onto work requirements for welfare. Opposition to Clinton’s position was at the heart of Obama’s move. That leftist background goes a long way toward explaining why Obama would risk stirring up a national controversy over changes to a welfare reform bill that the public was happy with.

Much of the debate over the claims in Romney’s new ad hinge on what you think Obama’s long-term intentions for welfare reform actually are. Either you believe the president when he and his representatives say that this change to the work requirements is just a tiny tweak that doesn’t mean much, or you believe conservative policy experts like Robert Rector, who say that all that talk is a smokescreen for an attempt to gut the core of the 1996 bill.

To resolve this conflict, voters need to form a judgement about Obama’s long-term intentions. And to make that decision, Obama’s leftist history on this issue is pertinent information. In short, the president’s past matters, as the Romney campaign itself pointed out when it raised his 1996 statements in opposition to welfare reform. Have a look at what else Obama was doing that year, and the point becomes stronger still.

http://www.therightscoop.com/what-wa...at-opposed-it/

http://www.therightscoop.com/brutal-...elfare-reform/

On Tuesday, the Romney campaign released an ad claiming that on July 12, President Obama "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform" by doing away with the work requirements Bill Clinton signed into law with 1996's Welfare Reform Act. This is not even sort of true, but the Obama campaign will obviously still be forced to explain away the claim. To that end, Clinton has released a statement criticizing it.

Clinton pointed out that all the administration has done is enacted a policy that offers states more flexibility by allowing them to submit proposed changes to their welfare programs to the Department of Health and Human Services. He also explained exactly why this does not pose a threat to the reforms he instituted:

"The act emerged after years of experiments at the state level, including my work as Governor of Arkansas beginning in 1980. When I became President, I granted waivers from the old law to 44 states to implement welfare to work strategies before welfare reform passed.
"After the law was enacted, every state was required to design a plan to move people into the workforce, along with more funds to help pay for training, childcare and transportation. As a result, millions of people moved from welfare to work.
"The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach. The welfare time limits, another important feature of the 1996 act will not be waived

HA..............

Clinton opposed the work requirement; he vetoed the legislation 3 times....no big news he would defend gutting it......

Thanks for linking Obama's bad policies with Clinton..

HA..............

Clinton opposed the work requirement; he vetoed the legislation 3 times....no big news he would defend gutting it......

Thanks for linking Obama's bad policies with Clinton.. Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Clinton only signed welfare reform because Dick Morris told him he had to, in order to get reelected. Clinton would have signed any bill in order to stay in office.

Bill and Hillary have the same long term goals as Obama. Some people seem to think that the Clintons are more centrist in their views; I dont'. Hillary was a huge fan of Saul Alinsky. She almost went to work for Alinsky full time instead of going to law school.

At least Clinton signed it in the Rose Garden before public and press; but Obama did it in the dark of night, on weekend, using the secretive executive order process......

So much for transparency he promised.