The only way to get anything truly productive done in a democracy is for the solution to come from a concensus. The best ideas and resulting actions come not from rushing to grab the simple majority in each house, but from disagreement, discussion, and everyone losing a little.
Therein lies the rub. For any group of politicians to sove a problem, removes it from the next election cycle as an "issue".
We should be the party that is willing to give up an issue in order to solve the problems of the citizens who send us to DO their work.

Ending the Welfare Program as it was practiced and operated was a good thing.
Now much work remains to be done about Corporate Welfare and ending the Israeli welfare program is also in order.
Both private concerns and the Middle Eastern Country are big enough to take care of their own affairs.

Regarding the politics of welfare reform, there is a great lesson to be learned, particularly in today’s hyper-partisan environment, where the Republican leadership forces bills through Congress without even a hint of bipartisanship.

Is Bill still campaigning for Joe Lieberman? Sounds like it here.

On Aug. 22, 1996, after vetoing two earlier versions, I signed welfare reform into law. At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous.

Here's how Ed Kilgore remembers it:

The first congressional welfare reform bill sent to Clinton was a House-based package that disqualified unmarried mothers--obviously a large segment of the welfare population--from any public benefits. He vetoed it. The second bill was Senate-based, and essentially turned the entire public assistance system into a block grant, with no real incentives for finding jobs for welfare recipients, and every incentive for states to just slash eligibility and call it a day. Clinton, calling the bill "tough on kids, weak on work," vetoed that one as well.

The final bill was indeed a compromise. It eliminated the personal entitlement to public assistance, but did not disqualify big categorties of Americans (other than legal immigrants, a provision which Clinton vowed to change, and did in no small part before he left office), and created significant incentives for states to help welfare recipients find jobs immediately.

Clinton famously agonized over signing this bill, but the idea that he simply caved in to Republicans is not at all accurate. Ten years later, the revisionist history of welfare reform is, like the bizarre belief of conservatives that Ronald Reagan created the 90s boom, just another bit of delusion in the service of propaganda.

Toughening the criteria for receiving welfare was part of the Republicans' Contract with America. There was no bipartisanship when this bill was signed.

I find it slightly worrying that many americans (30%+!) still think that the GOP is doing well with the economy. Very few people seem to grasp the notion that a successful economy should not be measured by the value of stocks on wall street, or the strength of the dollar against other currencies (which has plummeted since 2003).

Instead, a truly succesfull economy can be identified by the wages and quality of life for MOST PEOPLE in the country, not just the top 1%. This would show wether or not the effects of the good economy will be long-lived, and if most people are really benefiting or just a small percentage or already-rich people are getting even richer. An easy, simple way to measure this is the percentage of the population living in poverty, or near it.

"Child poverty dropped to 16.2 percent in 2000, the lowest rate since 1979, and in 2000, the percentage of Americans on welfare reached its lowest level in four decades. Overall, 100 times as many people moved out of poverty and into the middle class during our eight years as in the previous 12."

Presented with this data, one would presumably assume that who ever came to power in 1979 ruined an outstanding poverty record created by the former president, and then failed to match it again. This person was Ronald Reagan, a republican folk-hero.
The persons in power in the twelve years before president Clinton also must have had an appaling record for helping people move out of poverty, and their successor helped 100 times as many people move out of poverty as they did, in two thirds of the time. It would be interesting to note, again, that the two people in power at this time were Ronald Reagan (again) and his vice president, George Bush I.

Both men used a policy supposedly designed to reduce poverty, amongst other more dubious intentions, called the 'trickle-down' theory. The idea being that they essentially give wealthy people money in the hope that they spend it more freely, so the people who they pay earn more money, and then spend it, and so on, until all working people have made lots of money.

Unfortunately, these two case studies both demonstrated that the theory does not work, and in it fact makes 'poor people poorer and rich people richer'. The only thing it does do is create meaningless statistics for economic 'growth', which are currently being employed to their fullest extent by the most recent employer of this policy, George Bush II.

But this all begs the question, why is this useless policy still being used?!?

I love President Clinton.

as a social worker who works with the disabled in a fairly large metropolitan area, i think i can say that we have yet to see the full extent of the damage that this "welfare reform" bill has caused to those most in need of assistance in our society- i have heard bill try to pat himself on the back before over this- he should know better as intelligent as he is- i agree that reforms are needed and i think that incentives are an important idea, but the fundamentals that keep people of meager means to obtain the skills and the atmosphere to obtain a job was not addressed in this bill and still has not been addressed- and that is just those who might stand a chance to actually become gainfully (whatever that means nowadays) for longer than short periods of time- the disabled are typically in and out of jobs if they are able to work at all, and those jobs typically do not pay enough to keep one person alive with a roof over their head let alone a family- bill clinton knows all of this- he's too smart to write an article like the one he wrote today

i just read this article by paul wellstone from the nation- 6/24/99- and it made me sad to know that he is gone, especially in the face of having just read bill clinton's full article from the nytimes today- i'm with paul some 7 years later- the verdict is still coming in on this "reform"- things have only gotten worse under this present admin- i do not blame bill clinton for that, of course, but the compromise that he celebrates today is not worthy of celebration, i'm afraid for it never appeared to be a true compromise but more of a capitulation to people who really wern't interested in truly reforming how government or our society works- like i said above, we are still seeing the bad fruit of this bill with those that i come into contact on a daily basis (albeit, only made worse by draconian rules that medicaid agencies have put in place since repugs took over)- as the title of paul's article suggests- where have these people gone, those who left the rolls? do we really know? we wouldn't have known anything, necessarily, about those who stood in bread lines during the depression because there was no government assistance that would be able to place a name and a statistic with their situation- is that where we are now heading?- i don't know, but it is worth asking as mr wellstone does in this article

http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990712/wellstone

Jefro,

I used to like Bill Clinton, but now I think that he and the DLC have put the Democratic party were it is. His constant placating of the right wing hurts the Democrats even to this day.
To be sure, welfare needed reform, but the appropriate training and resources were never alocated to the "welfare-to-work" program. A mere 6 weeks to get women off welfare and into a respectable job is laughable---it takes 6 weeks just to get them to believe in education. For many of these single mothers training is essential because so many were teenage mothers with hardly the skills to find work. Since they are mothers, day care and parental training is also necessary--all things that the republicans refuse to pay for. They would rather give that money to large corporations. What I wouldn't do for a leader like Roosevelt now!!! Oh well keep up the faith, maybe things will get better.

We should just go on and ammend the U.S.Constitution so that Bill Clinton can run for President again in 2008.

The moderate wings of each party need more support and voice as this provides for meaningful discussion and debate on the issues that Americans want to see resolved in a bipartisan fashion.

Government power was more balanced during the Clinton years and the general approach by our elected representatives was notable. We reached across the aisle and sought to bring the best ideas together from both parties.

I also believe the media has the choice and responsibility to unite Americans and to limit partisan mockery. For example, the red/blue state maps on television psychologically map out our differences and push regions of the country further apart. I am always up for adopting a splash of purple on the electoral grid.

Government power was more balanced during the Clinton years and the general approach by our elected representatives was notable. We reached across the aisle and sought to bring the best ideas together from both parties.

uhhhhh, Steve, I don't know where you were during Clinton's era, but I was watching the daily spectacle on TV, as Ken Starr and the Republicans accomplished NOTHING except try and bring Bill Clinton down.

there was more discontent between the parties than there is even now. The hatred of Bill Clinton and the fact that he won over their Bush Sr and then Dole just fueled them into nothing more than sleazy politics.

PamB, I agree with you that behind the scenes Clinton was detested by the opposition party. Is that not what happens to any person elected to the executive office? The point I was trying to make was that Clinton, as a democrat, created a balance in power because all branches of government office were not controlled yet by the Republicans.

Do you honestly believe that the hatred for Clinton is as strong as that for Bush II?

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Scooter
www.jutiagroup.com

Government power was more balanced during the Clinton years and the general approach by our elected representatives was notable. We reached across the aisle and sought to bring the best ideas together from both parties.

I guess the impeachment was figment of my imagination. I'm happy Clinton doesn't seem to mind the time and effort wasted in that bi-partisan effort. I think it brought out the worst in each party...and it's gotten nothing but worse since then.

So, why would we be better off sinking to the low levels of those we disagree with? Bitterness is inevitable when both parties are not able to say they contributed to meaning legislation. When it comes to campaigning, by all means take the gloves off. This is where the Democrats must fight harder for their beliefs. This can not be a message relating to only one or two groups. It must be a message of universal truth and inspiration for a better tomorrow. We obviously can not change the past.

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Scooter
www.jutiagroup.com

The Clinton's were the beginning of America's decline.

www.seprises.homestead.com

This article is nothing more than self-serving fluff on the part of President Clinton. The action of slashing needy people from any public assistance whatsoever has caused untold misery among the most needy, including the working poor who can't earn one one-hundredth of the salary of Mr. Clinton, in spite of their often working longer and harder than he ever did. The statistics showing fewer people on welfare may fuel Mr. Clinton's illusions of grandeur, but they have nothing to do with any success in his program, unless one would call denial of a bare minimum of food, shelter and health care to millions to be a success.
Get out of your penthouse, Mr. Clinton, and visit the people that you have supposedly "saved". Witness firsthand the misery and desperation that you have authored.

To paraphrase Slick Willie:

Welfare was “not working for the taxpayers.” Go figure. It wasn’t supposed to in any immediate sense. That is at least until Reaganomics came along as a remedy for a government of, for, and by the people.... Kind of a misbegotten ideal, don’t you think? Because it was the tax payer’s, in the first place, who chose to dig deep in response to this crisis, as the once Jeffersonian basis of our civil culture prompted many of us to come to the aid of our fellow country men, women and children without question. It was a matter of national pride and dignity, as this generosity was inspired by those selfsame tendencies now maligned by the reductive, sluggard’s oath of the “L” word. Which is a malaprop for an “F” word. Gee we all still in high school, eh Herbert?

So during my administration, as a remedy to the wasteful 18 billion dollar a year social services budget as juxtaposed by the 350 billion price tag of the DoD, Republicans wanted welfare disappeared, and to “require able-bodied people to work,” presuming all other attempts at appeasement and reparations for the inherently exploitive nature of an economic system which feigns a blind eye to race and class, but is historically prone to tyranny as any nation whose wealth depends on a cheap, ignorant labor force that must be suppressed in order to maintain power at the upper quintile. It was the New Deal thing, the “socialism” thing they held up as a memento mori, so much to say, sink or swim you human offal, go team on someone else’s wretched shores…

And you know, it’s the religion-thing that makes the ethics that beguile you non-Rhodes scholars into renting your lives, bending to the wheel, walking un-easily in harness, all for the big pay-off in some fumy nether regions when you can no longer produce, or when your body breaks down, at which point you’re good as dead anyway, and little more than a liability. Man that really sucks. For you…

And despite my affable nature, homespun charm and genial sleaziness, “I was widely criticized by LIBERALS (no less) who thought the work requirements too harsh.” Lazy bastards. But what I really meant by associating them with the word "harsh" was that LIBERALS saw through the divisiveness of a program that would provide little transition to meaningful work, that more than likely wouldn’t supply a living wage nor any of the benefits they presently had to maintain the health or well being of a population whose dignity was already pretty much non-existent. As the majority of the jobs available would provide little or no upward mobility, security, and were often supplied by those trying to take advantage of the program and their diminished circumstances, not out any sense of altruism or civic duty, but because they were getting federal assistance too, right? They just needed a carpetbag…. And hey, let’s face it, we’re talkin’ social Darwinism here. It’s the luck of the draw, so screw you… It doesn’t matter, as whatever has been the lot of the poor and underprivileged classes in America; it was probably their fault anyway. And that Bobby Kennedy was just a bleeding heart momma’s boy; he didn’t have to pull himself up by his bootstraps like me. Because we couldn’t even afford those fancy Camelot boots with straps…

“In the past decade, welfare rolls have dropped substantially, from 12.2 million in 1996 to 4.5 million today.” That’s because with my program after five years, you can no longer collect welfare again. Ever. And that has nothing to do with the 46.1 million people who are presently without health coverage. (O.k. HMOs were a bad idea). Or the downwardly harmonious trends of a steady but gradual rise in unemployment for those who can still collect unemployment, and so are counted, skewing the 8.95% misery index statistics which on the ground look nothing like reality—just ask a few Katrina survivors—that is if the Black Water folks will let you interview tax paying U.S. citizens on “FEMA” property. Don’t you just love this country? He he.

But in my defense, I initiated “tax incentives to encourage businesses to hire long-term welfare recipients.” So how did that work? Give it time… And as “the (falsely) booming (high-tech, non tangible product based, speculative) economy helped” to create the necessary illusion that I really gave a crap and could feel the pain of you poor folks for a second or two, it has come clear that since I opened this Pandora’s box, doing what even Mr. Nixon feared to do, legislative strides forward like the “recent welfare reform amendments… that cut back on states’ ability to devise their own programs” are an indicator of the general slide toward what the Corporatists lovingly refer to as “structural re-adjustment.” Just consider this an adjunct to Montezuma's Revenge.

Yeah we could “consider higher education as a category of “work,” but since I gave China most favored nation status, ram-rodded NAFTA through the house, expanded our involvement with the WTO & GAT, all of which has inspired trade agreements that have all but decimated the middle class, as there is now a hemorrhaging of skilled labor jobs to third world hell holes where workers rights are pretty much decided by the barrel of a Kalashnikov. Your M.B.A. don’t mean squat here or in India, dude.

So as I am now a surrogate member of the _ _ _ _ family, privy to all the chthonic machinations of the Power Elite, aw shucks, ya’ll can just eat a big block of government cheese, and stop your kvetchin’. I got mines.

And yours ain’t sh*t,

William anti-Jefferson, Clinton