Romney Hits Obama Move Gutting Welfare Reform

[Jackson]

Romney Hits Obama Move Gutting Welfare Reform

While the Obama campaign goes all out attacking Mitt Romney’s business history, the Romney campaign is looking carefully at a new Obama administration policy that could become a significant part of Romney’s case against the president

That reform, originally vetoed but later signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is widely viewed as the most successful policy initiative in a generation.

Friday morning, with Obama’s action still largely unreported, Romney released a statement calling Obama’s move “completely misdirected.”

“President Obama now wants to strip the established work requirements from welfare,” Romney said. “The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The president’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”

Romney hits Obama move gutting welfare reform | WashingtonExaminer.com

 

[California Girl]

Obama is implementing a policy that has failed in every nation that tries it. There is decades of research to support the 'welfare to work' rather than 'money for nothing' approach. Welfare without some requirement to work breeds generational welfare mentality. In the UK, there are thousands of families who have, for generations, never worked a day in their lives. It is not only bad for them as individuals, as families, it is incredibly destructive for society.

Congratulations Obama... you're even more of a fucking idiot that you appear to be.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Seriously, what gives him the power to make law? None of this is within his power and it appears to me that he is crapping all over the consitution.

If you think differently can you show me how I'm wrong? I thought only one section of this law he could touch, 402.

 

[Jackson]

This was one of Clinton most successful endeavors. I'd like to see what he has to say about this and how willing he is to stump for Obama now.

 

[AquaAthena]

This was one of Clinton most successful endeavors. I'd like to see what he has to say about this and how willing he is to stump for Obama now.

Yes, this "show, or absence of show" for The One, will be interesting. Obama's policies makes Clinton's look even better than they were.

 

[Care4all]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this? not general terms like gutted. but precisely, what was done.

 

[ScienceRocks]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this?

Removed the work requirement for welfare. The core of welfare reform. I'm trying to understand this myself.

 

[Greenbeard]

Odd response from a guy who:

1) Routinely says he believes in state flexibility and state solutions, forged in the laboratories of democracy. Which is exactly the approach ACF is taking here ("...many jurisdictions expressed a strong interest in greater flexibility in TANF and indicated that greater flexibility could be used by states to improve program effectiveness. . . States offered a range of suggestions for ways in which expanded flexibility could lead to more effective employment outcomes for families."), and

2) Claims one of his first actions in office would be to issue a slew of waivers that have no legal basis (the Section 1115 waiver authority ACF is citing actually exists).

But it's Romney, so expecting coherence is asking a bit much.

 

[8537]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this?

Removed the work requirement for welfare. The core of welfare reform. I'm trying to understand this myself.

No, they didn't. That's simply not true.

They provided waivers for states from certain aspects of the 80% rule in order to allow states to create innovative ways to tackle the problem.

For what it's worth, every state in the Union was granted a waiver from the original five-year requirement. Under Bush. I'm not sure if Romney is dishonest or uninformed (or both).

 

[Trajan]

heres the text-

Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families

Information Memorandum


U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children and Families
Office of Family Assistance
Washington, D.C. 20447
Transmittal No. TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03

Date: July 12, 2012
TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03

 

[Trajan]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this?

Removed the work requirement for welfare. The core of welfare reform. I'm trying to understand this myself.

No, they didn't. That's simply not true.

*shrugs*

Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”

In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.

snip-

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements&#8221. Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.

They provided waivers for states from certain aspects of the 80% rule in order to allow states to create innovative ways to tackle the problem.

For what it's worth, every state in the Union was granted a waiver from the original five-year requirement. Under Bush. I'm not sure if Romney is dishonest or uninformed (or both).

then this is no longer accurate?
TANF Final Rule


and the 5 year rule being waived by bush, could you link to that please?


I did find this;

http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ppc/tanf_schneider.pdf


hummm;




The 1996 Welfare Law and Changes to Date Replacement of AFDC by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF is a fixed block grant for state-designed programs of time-limited and work-conditioned aid to families with children. Enacted on August 22, 1996 (P. L. 104-193), it repealed AFDC, Emergency Assistance for Needy Families, and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program and replaced them with TANF. It combines previous funding levels for the three programs into a single block ($ 16.5 billion annually through FY2002) and entitles each state to a fixed annual sum based on pre-TANF funding. It also provides an average of $2.3 billion annually in a new child care block grant. The law appropriates extra funds for loans, contingencies, bonuses for "high performance" and for reducing out-of wedlock births, and supplemental grants for states with historically low federal welfare funding per poor person and/ or rapid population gain. As amended in 1997 (P. L. 105-33), TANF law also provided a $3 billion program in FY1998-FY1999 for welfare-to- work (WtW) grants, most of which required state cost sharing, to help states achieve required work participation rates TANF greatly enlarged state discretion in operating family welfare, and it ended the benefit entitlement of individual families. States decide what kinds of needy families to help and whether to adopt financial rewards for work. TANF explicitly allows states to administer benefits and provide services through contracts/ vouchers with charitable, religious, or private organizations, a provision widely called Charitable Choice.

Attached to the TANF block grant are some federal conditions. States must achieve minimum work participation rates and maintain at least 75% of their "historic" level of state welfare funding, increased to 80% if the state fails the work participation rate. States must require parents and other caretaker recipients to engage in state-defined "work" after a maximum of 24 months of benefits and must impose a general 5-year time limit on federally-funded ongoing basic benefits. They may exempt single parents with a child under age 1 from required work (and from the calculation of work participation rates). In FY2002, 50% of all families with an adult recipient must work (including 90% of families with two parents); these rates are lowered for caseload declines from FY1995 levels. States are forbidden to give TANF aid to unwed parents under 18 unless they live under adult supervision, and, if high school dropouts, attend school. States may continue reforms begun under waivers from AFDC rules even if terms are inconsistent with the new law. (For TANF provisions, as compared to AFDC, see CRS Report 96-720.)



Welfare Reform: An Issue Overview

*shrugs*....

 

[8537]

Removed the work requirement for welfare. The core of welfare reform. I'm trying to understand this myself.

No, they didn't. That's simply not true.

*shrugs*

Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”

In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.

snip-

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements&#8221. Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.

They provided waivers for states from certain aspects of the 80% rule in order to allow states to create innovative ways to tackle the problem.

For what it's worth, every state in the Union was granted a waiver from the original five-year requirement. Under Bush. I'm not sure if Romney is dishonest or uninformed (or both).

then this is no longer accurate?
TANF Final Rule


and the 5 year rule being waived by bush, could you link to that please?


I did find this;

http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ppc/tanf_schneider.pdf


hummm;




The 1996 Welfare Law and Changes to Date Replacement of AFDC by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF is a fixed block grant for state-designed programs of time-limited and work-conditioned aid to families with children. Enacted on August 22, 1996 (P. L. 104-193), it repealed AFDC, Emergency Assistance for Needy Families, and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program and replaced them with TANF. It combines previous funding levels for the three programs into a single block ($ 16.5 billion annually through FY2002) and entitles each state to a fixed annual sum based on pre-TANF funding. It also provides an average of $2.3 billion annually in a new child care block grant. The law appropriates extra funds for loans, contingencies, bonuses for "high performance" and for reducing out-of wedlock births, and supplemental grants for states with historically low federal welfare funding per poor person and/ or rapid population gain. As amended in 1997 (P. L. 105-33), TANF law also provided a $3 billion program in FY1998-FY1999 for welfare-to- work (WtW) grants, most of which required state cost sharing, to help states achieve required work participation rates TANF greatly enlarged state discretion in operating family welfare, and it ended the benefit entitlement of individual families. States decide what kinds of needy families to help and whether to adopt financial rewards for work. TANF explicitly allows states to administer benefits and provide services through contracts/ vouchers with charitable, religious, or private organizations, a provision widely called Charitable Choice.

Attached to the TANF block grant are some federal conditions. States must achieve minimum work participation rates and maintain at least 75% of their "historic" level of state welfare funding, increased to 80% if the state fails the work participation rate. States must require parents and other caretaker recipients to engage in state-defined "work" after a maximum of 24 months of benefits and must impose a general 5-year time limit on federally-funded ongoing basic benefits. They may exempt single parents with a child under age 1 from required work (and from the calculation of work participation rates). In FY2002, 50% of all families with an adult recipient must work (including 90% of families with two parents); these rates are lowered for caseload declines from FY1995 levels. States are forbidden to give TANF aid to unwed parents under 18 unless they live under adult supervision, and, if high school dropouts, attend school. States may continue reforms begun under waivers from AFDC rules even if terms are inconsistent with the new law. (For TANF provisions, as compared to AFDC, see CRS Report 96-720.)



Welfare Reform: An Issue Overview

*shrugs*....

*shrugs* states haven't met the work participation rates across the board. Ever. At any point. Using the waivers built into the law, the Federal government is amending the process so that states can create their own strategies for meeting the 80% 5/2 rules without being penalized.

Rightwing claptraps not up to speed...Please don't copy and paste from Rush without crediting the fat slob.

 

[tererun]

I don't mind the welfare to work idea, but it has a few flaws.

1. In this present economy the welfare to work idea becomes a bit hard to implement. If your idea is that most people who receive welfare are just living it up off the system and collecting big bucks you are mistaken for most people on welfare. I am sure there are a few people who may scam the system, but welfare has such low benefits that even a full time minimum wage job would be better than welfare. the problem arises on a few points.

a. Not enough jobs and a huge number of applicants means getting a job may be damned near impossible depending on location. If you are in welfare housing you need to be really lucky to land a position. It would be one thing if there were jobs and welfare people just refused to work, but you need to make the jobs for welfare people to work. If the government makes the jobs for welfare recipients you run into the trouble of it being like outsourcing. This means you take a job from a working person and give it to the welfare people. With that you create more unemployment at legitimate wages as welfare does not provide minimum wage, and you make the problem worse.

b. Single moms, or families below poverty line. The reality is if you have kids and are on welfare you have a problem with working. Someone has to take care of the children. there is a known problem called working for childcare. this means that if you go out and get a minimum wage job you pretty much spend your entire paycheck on daycare while you are working if you have kids under the age for public school. this problem could be addressed with some reliable public daycare programs, but this would require an initial raise in tax money to establish some real programs. If done right it could reduce costs in the long run, but it would cost money to do initially, and with the jobs deficit it is pointless to implement.

c. Welfare is really not ruining the country. The easy benefit to get for a healthy person who can work is the food stamp program. That is 1200 dollars a year at max for a person that can only be spent on food. This is actually a beneficial program as it increases demand on retailers who sell food, and that increases demand on farmers and distributors. killing this program without employing people would be a death blow to to american food retailers and suppliers. It would also start to raise theft and riots as all those people are not going to just starve to death or dissapear when you toss them off of the program.

d. The biggest problem of welfare is families, or i should say new family members. s republicans try to crack doqwn on Birth Control and abortion, and do not want to provide any care for those children they force to be born to parents who cannot afford them they make an ongoing problem. If you really want to save some money on welfare we need some radical new programs. You would save a shitton of money by providing birth control and abortions to women on welfare. i would even suggest that if you are on public assistance you should be restricted from having kids. if you want public assistance then you should not make things worse by having more kids the public needs to support. this idea would not get by the anti-woman crowd as republicans want to force kids to be born, but after that it is fuck you.

e. Welfare for poor is not as terrible as welfare for the rich. Welfare for the rich is otherwise known as trickle down economics. It says that if we throw money and less taxes at the rich they will take that money and create jobs. It is simply not true. One thing that economics teaches us is that the 1 percent cannot create the demand that increases commerce by their own spending. On the other side you have the poor who simply have no money to spend, but have a need to spend money that the rich do not have. Very simply the poor go without, but any money they get will get spent and not get put in tax free shelters and invested overseas. They will create a local demand as you give them money, and since they are numerous they have the consumption strength to actually create a need for more manufacturing, services, and many more jobs which the rich could provide without the tax breaks. the rich would also be stupid to not invest in covering this new demand with their own money as it would be profitable for them.

Does obama have these ideas in mind? I don't know, but he does seem to be a lot more in touch with america than Mittens. i am sure mittens has absolutely no concept of these things. His ideas are based on the profitability of a single company in a world full of competition without a concern for the poor. Bain has the same concern for the poor that any other business does, and though he may be great at running a business, he is complete fail at running government. As the US was gaining jobs he actually drove them away from MA during his time as governor. This is because he approached the position as he would approach running Bain which is far from how the government works. Welfare has improved over the years, but is still in need of some good reform. This is something Romney is not capable of which leaves Obama who is actually trying. romney would just destroy the system, and then wonder why people are rioting and jobs start going away again.

 

[Jackson]

*shrugs*

Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”

In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.

snip-

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements&#8221. Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.





then this is no longer accurate?
TANF Final Rule


and the 5 year rule being waived by bush, could you link to that please?


I did find this;

http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ppc/tanf_schneider.pdf


hummm;




The 1996 Welfare Law and Changes to Date Replacement of AFDC by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF is a fixed block grant for state-designed programs of time-limited and work-conditioned aid to families with children. Enacted on August 22, 1996 (P. L. 104-193), it repealed AFDC, Emergency Assistance for Needy Families, and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program and replaced them with TANF. It combines previous funding levels for the three programs into a single block ($ 16.5 billion annually through FY2002) and entitles each state to a fixed annual sum based on pre-TANF funding. It also provides an average of $2.3 billion annually in a new child care block grant. The law appropriates extra funds for loans, contingencies, bonuses for "high performance" and for reducing out-of wedlock births, and supplemental grants for states with historically low federal welfare funding per poor person and/ or rapid population gain. As amended in 1997 (P. L. 105-33), TANF law also provided a $3 billion program in FY1998-FY1999 for welfare-to- work (WtW) grants, most of which required state cost sharing, to help states achieve required work participation rates TANF greatly enlarged state discretion in operating family welfare, and it ended the benefit entitlement of individual families. States decide what kinds of needy families to help and whether to adopt financial rewards for work. TANF explicitly allows states to administer benefits and provide services through contracts/ vouchers with charitable, religious, or private organizations, a provision widely called Charitable Choice.

Attached to the TANF block grant are some federal conditions. States must achieve minimum work participation rates and maintain at least 75% of their "historic" level of state welfare funding, increased to 80% if the state fails the work participation rate. States must require parents and other caretaker recipients to engage in state-defined "work" after a maximum of 24 months of benefits and must impose a general 5-year time limit on federally-funded ongoing basic benefits. They may exempt single parents with a child under age 1 from required work (and from the calculation of work participation rates). In FY2002, 50% of all families with an adult recipient must work (including 90% of families with two parents); these rates are lowered for caseload declines from FY1995 levels. States are forbidden to give TANF aid to unwed parents under 18 unless they live under adult supervision, and, if high school dropouts, attend school. States may continue reforms begun under waivers from AFDC rules even if terms are inconsistent with the new law. (For TANF provisions, as compared to AFDC, see CRS Report 96-720.)



Welfare Reform: An Issue Overview

*shrugs*....

*shrugs* states haven't met the work participation rates across the board. Ever. At any point. Using the waivers built into the law, the Federal government is amending the process so that states can create their own strategies for meeting the 80% 5/2 rules without being penalized.

Rightwing claptraps not up to speed...Please don't copy and paste from Rush without crediting the fat slob.

does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Since when can the HHS via the president amend an existing law?

 

[Charles_Main]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this? not general terms like gutted. but precisely, what was done.

It's unclear because Obama was unclear. He said he is going to offer waivers to states so they can change what qualifies as work.

Problem is he has no authority to issue the waivers. It's just another Example of Obama abusing Executive Power and behaving like a Dictator.

 

[Trajan]

*shrugs*

Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”

In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.

snip-

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements”). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.





then this is no longer accurate?
TANF Final Rule


and the 5 year rule being waived by bush, could you link to that please?


I did find this;

http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ppc/tanf_schneider.pdf


hummm;




The 1996 Welfare Law and Changes to Date Replacement of AFDC by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF is a fixed block grant for state-designed programs of time-limited and work-conditioned aid to families with children. Enacted on August 22, 1996 (P. L. 104-193), it repealed AFDC, Emergency Assistance for Needy Families, and the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program and replaced them with TANF. It combines previous funding levels for the three programs into a single block ($ 16.5 billion annually through FY2002) and entitles each state to a fixed annual sum based on pre-TANF funding. It also provides an average of $2.3 billion annually in a new child care block grant. The law appropriates extra funds for loans, contingencies, bonuses for "high performance" and for reducing out-of wedlock births, and supplemental grants for states with historically low federal welfare funding per poor person and/ or rapid population gain. As amended in 1997 (P. L. 105-33), TANF law also provided a $3 billion program in FY1998-FY1999 for welfare-to- work (WtW) grants, most of which required state cost sharing, to help states achieve required work participation rates TANF greatly enlarged state discretion in operating family welfare, and it ended the benefit entitlement of individual families. States decide what kinds of needy families to help and whether to adopt financial rewards for work. TANF explicitly allows states to administer benefits and provide services through contracts/ vouchers with charitable, religious, or private organizations, a provision widely called Charitable Choice.

Attached to the TANF block grant are some federal conditions. States must achieve minimum work participation rates and maintain at least 75% of their "historic" level of state welfare funding, increased to 80% if the state fails the work participation rate. States must require parents and other caretaker recipients to engage in state-defined "work" after a maximum of 24 months of benefits and must impose a general 5-year time limit on federally-funded ongoing basic benefits. They may exempt single parents with a child under age 1 from required work (and from the calculation of work participation rates). In FY2002, 50% of all families with an adult recipient must work (including 90% of families with two parents); these rates are lowered for caseload declines from FY1995 levels. States are forbidden to give TANF aid to unwed parents under 18 unless they live under adult supervision, and, if high school dropouts, attend school. States may continue reforms begun under waivers from AFDC rules even if terms are inconsistent with the new law. (For TANF provisions, as compared to AFDC, see CRS Report 96-720.)



Welfare Reform: An Issue Overview

*shrugs*....

*shrugs* states haven't met the work participation rates across the board. Ever. At any point. Using the waivers built into the law, the Federal government is amending the process so that states can create their own strategies for meeting the 80% 5/2 rules without being penalized.

fine, but that doesn't answer my question;

the 5 year rule being waived by bush, could you link to that please?

if its out there I am not googling the correct term....

Rightwing claptraps not up to speed...Please don't copy and paste from Rush without crediting the fat slob.

was that intended for me?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Romney Hits Obama Move Gutting Welfare Reform

While the Obama campaign goes all out attacking Mitt Romney’s business history, the Romney campaign is looking carefully at a new Obama administration policy that could become a significant part of Romney’s case against the president

That reform, originally vetoed but later signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is widely viewed as the most successful policy initiative in a generation.

Friday morning, with Obama’s action still largely unreported, Romney released a statement calling Obama’s move “completely misdirected.”

“President Obama now wants to strip the established work requirements from welfare,” Romney said. “The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The president’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”

Romney hits Obama move gutting welfare reform | WashingtonExaminer.com

Apparently this is about more conservative lies, ignorance, and partisan stupidity:

States will not be able to escape the work requirements of the landmark 1996 federal welfare reform law, the administration said, but they may get federal approval to try to accomplish the same goals by using different methods than those spelled out in the legislation.

The administration said the waiver program is a response to concerns from state officials - Republicans as well as Democrats - that the work requirements in the law are too rigid and create bureaucratic hurdles to actually placing welfare recipients in jobs. Officials say the program does not violate the underlying law because of a provision that allows waivers of state plans.

In its memo to the states, the administration said no waivers will be allowed that could reduce access to employment, nor will they permit exceptions to time limits on welfare assistance. Waivers can be revoked if the experiments don't work out. Still, a state can seek a waiver to cover its entire welfare population.

Administration proposes welfare-to-work waivers | Seattle Times Newspaper

The irony of this is that the Welfare Reform Act, as passed by a republican Congress, was designed to give states and local Regional Workforce Boards (RWB) the flexibility to accommodate local needs.

For example, some RWBs don’t allow job search as a countable activity per their states’ guidelines. With a waiver job search might now be allowed as a countable activity in place of community service, as the former might be a more productive activity – but those receiving TANF benefits must remain engaged to be eligible.

Now we have the ridiculous specter of conservatives opposing a policy that might help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient quicker in a partisan effort to attack Obama. Amazing.

Clearly the right has become collectively insane as a consequence of its irrational hatred of the president.

 

[Jackson]

Romney Hits Obama Move Gutting Welfare Reform

While the Obama campaign goes all out attacking Mitt Romney’s business history, the Romney campaign is looking carefully at a new Obama administration policy that could become a significant part of Romney’s case against the president

That reform, originally vetoed but later signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is widely viewed as the most successful policy initiative in a generation.

Friday morning, with Obama’s action still largely unreported, Romney released a statement calling Obama’s move “completely misdirected.”

“President Obama now wants to strip the established work requirements from welfare,” Romney said. “The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The president’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”

Romney hits Obama move gutting welfare reform | WashingtonExaminer.com

Apparently this is about more conservative lies, ignorance, and partisan stupidity:

States will not be able to escape the work requirements of the landmark 1996 federal welfare reform law, the administration said, but they may get federal approval to try to accomplish the same goals by using different methods than those spelled out in the legislation.

The administration said the waiver program is a response to concerns from state officials - Republicans as well as Democrats - that the work requirements in the law are too rigid and create bureaucratic hurdles to actually placing welfare recipients in jobs. Officials say the program does not violate the underlying law because of a provision that allows waivers of state plans.

In its memo to the states, the administration said no waivers will be allowed that could reduce access to employment, nor will they permit exceptions to time limits on welfare assistance. Waivers can be revoked if the experiments don't work out. Still, a state can seek a waiver to cover its entire welfare population.

Administration proposes welfare-to-work waivers | Seattle Times Newspaper

The irony of this is that the Welfare Reform Act, as passed by a republican Congress, was designed to give states and local Regional Workforce Boards (RWB) the flexibility to accommodate local needs.

For example, some RWBs don’t allow job search as a countable activity per their states’ guidelines. With a waiver job search might now be allowed as a countable activity in place of community service, as the former might be a more productive activity – but those receiving TANF benefits must remain engaged to be eligible.

Now we have the ridiculous specter of conservatives opposing a policy that might help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient quicker in a partisan effort to attack Obama. Amazing.

Clearly the right has become collectively insane as a consequence of its irrational hatred of the president.

Just how will this new policy of NOT working help welfare recipients become employed and self sufficient quicker?

 

[Greenbeard]

Just how will this new policy of NOT working help welfare recipients become employed and self sufficient quicker?

"As described below, however, HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF."

Allowing states to apply for these 1115 waivers doesn't mean work requirements go away. It's a response to state requests for more flexibility to meet the goals of the program. For instance, Utah wrote:

Waiver Authority: Utah is especially interested in the development of waiver authority in the TANF grant. Utah has the desire to expend TANF dollars in the most efficient and effective manner supporting the kind of services and activities that promote initial employment, wage progression, and employment retention. Utah is willing to be held accountable for the positive employment outcomes resulting from the efforts of the Department of Workforce Services. A change in the approach away from narrowly prescribed priority activities to one of outcomes would relieve staffs from the burden of collecting data that is not relevant to the outcome of work, and hold staffs accountable for the employment outcome rather than the currently prescribed collection of participation data. As a state driven by data, DWS is anxious to discover the most effective activities that lead to employment. Waivers will allow experimentation in finding effective pathways. While Utah supports a work search requirement, we will only consider waiver authority based on those processes that actually improve employment outcomes.

Recommendation: Allow waivers where the measurement of employment is the primary reportable data to the federal government and allow Utah to expand the definitions of priority activities from the current narrow definitions of countable hours and provide relief from the prescriptive verification processes. The expectation to participate fully in specific activities leadingto employment is not the issue. Full engagement is a powerful process that can lead to work. It is the narrow definitions of what counts and the burdensome documentation and verification processes that are not helpful. Experience tells us:

• Participation in federally defined activities has become the outcome of the TANF program
• Employment should be the measure of success
• Advancement and stable income for current and post assistance families could be part of the continued effort
• Freedom to tailor services, participation, work preparation to the family and the economic service area without strict regard to narrowed definitions of allowable activities will give us the ability to test out other models that may be better designed to an area’s resources and economic realities.

It will be important that a waiver contain the relief from the expectation to meet the strict standardsof reporting and verifying actual hours of participation of federally prescribed activities. Assisting a customer in the most relevant activities to find and keep employment should be the work of staff, not collecting and verifying hours in the manner now prescribed.

In addition, waivers could be useful when a state has unique populations to serve such as Refugees.The Refugee families have challenges that are overwhelming to the family and the system. To fitthe need of learning English, adjusting to education systems for parents and children, and the cultural issues of both parents working does not remotely fit the design of participation in the TANF program. Yet, by regulation, TANF is the default program for Refugee families with children

It'll be interesting to see which states apply for an 1115, what they propose, and how they propose to evaluate their alternative as they go.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

what EXACTLY was done and for how long etc....does anyone have the facts on this? not general terms like gutted. but precisely, what was done.

Yes.