I wrote to the Clinton administration and told him that the reforms were going to do exactly what this article states. Obviously it didn’t matter to him.

Mad-as-Hell, determined to have the last word:
“If @T thinks the fascists have won, why bother trying to vote?”
-----
By now, we suppose Mad as Hell will have seen the happy news that one big contributor to the primary campaign of nominally-Democratic Senator Lieberman was the REPUBLICAN party.

“Trying to vote” is right: with the corporate e-machinery prescribed to “Help America Vote”, the electoral system is so screwed nobody believes in it, and many DON’T bother to vote anymore.

@T still votes, though. Mostly because of Martin Luther King, and not out of any faith in the blow-dried chickens at the top of the Democratic Party, good Germans that they are.

@T / http://DeepEndNews.com

Yeah, MAH loved Jimmy Carter--PROUDLY voted for him both times, still think he’s a fantastic man and, other than playing politics badly, was a fine president, the best we’ve had in a LONG time.

I didn’t care much for WJC--threw my vote away voting for a 3rd party in 1996, but now I regret it.

If @T thinks the fascists have won, why bother trying to vote?  They haven’t won the war yet, just a lot of battles.  But if they lose the House and/or the Senate, they’ll lose the WHOLE enchilada.  See, there haven’t been any REAL investigations into Mad King George’s treason because his boys prevent both Houses from starting any.  But either house goes Democratic and ALL the lies and dirty tricks will spill out like puss from a lanced boil. 

And that will save our republic.

So it doesn’t matter if there are DINOs and centrist Democrats if the House is won back.  Leaders of committees can start investigations--and who do you think will be the head of the House Judicial Committee?  Someone who ALREADY has called for impeachment hearings.

@T is wrong.  Now is NOT the time to break the coalition to get lock-step no-deviation pseudo-fascist purity.  In fact, I NEVER want that.

Yeah, yeah: Mad-as-Hell warns—two elections late—that the fascists are coming, the fascists are coming. And that nothing can save us but pretending to believe in the leadership of some soldier-cult phony—the Clintons, Kerry, Gore, Biden, et al.—nodding off in a top hat at some fundraising garden party. The fascists HAVE succeeded, in fact—succeeded in 2000.

Democrats, independents, Libertarians, moderate Republicans, labor parties, and non-aligned voters of all sorts must unite, all right—not only to unhorse the right, and bring the major players to justice for hijacking the military --but to take back Democratic “leadership” from the Clintons, Kerry, Gore, Biden, Lieberman (one down), and the rest who have kow-tow’d since Kennedy was assassinated to an outrageous mideast policy (no Iz-crit allowed by the big Dems), big money, corporate centrism, and ignoring and torturing the poor.

Remember that Ronald Reagan, the actor who started the neo-con crusade chapter of the white-right’s struggle to subdue the rest of the world, was a Democrat who sold out ...

@T loved Jimmy Carter, loves him still. The big Dems deserted Carter because unlike JC, they were chicken to rumble with the right—and they still are—except for John Edwards.

@T / http://DeepEndNews.com

If @T has his way, the GOP will keep the House and Senate in 2006 and the WH in 2008.  He will be comforted as the fascists proceed to COMPLETE their takeover of America and destruction of our unique republic, by the fact that he remained “intellectually pure"--whatever the HELL that means!

“He was right, dead right as he sped along.  But he’s just as dead as if he’d been dead wrong!”

Sorry folks, in this case the ends (preventing the fascists from succeeding) DO justify the means (Uniting Democrats from the left to the right, as well as Independents and soured liberal Republicans).

I remember who the purist leftists described Jimmy Carter as “impossible”.  They allowed the party to be split, support to be weakened, and what followed was 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of Bush 1, and 6 years of a GOP-controlled Senate.  Deficits rose, unemployment rose until WJC beat Bush 1.  Now they describe Bill Clinton the same way.  Do I think Slick Willy was perfect? Hell no! But I’ve seen the other side--Mad King George and I STAND on my contention that compared to “Let’s go Fascist” MKG, Bill Clinton is George Washington, Abe Lincoln and FDR rolled into one.

You don’t like my realism? Then your purity will be cold comfort as Mad King George and HitMan Dick Cheney complete the dis-assembly of our republic to replace it with an imperial empire.

I want to thank Robert Scheer, with all my heart, for this item concerning the the realities of poverty in America. I could go on about the horrendous, rippling effect the repeal of welfare has had throughout the US, or how it soon became apparent that the primary reason behind these policies was to funnel millions into bottom-wage jobs to spare corporations the cost and inconvenience of moving American jobs to Third World nations. But I believe Mr. Schneer did a good job of presenting the fundamental facts.  The welfare “reform” agenda has been instrumental to dismantling all labor rights and protections while dramatically lowering wages. 

These policies have also been devastating to the poor, and many have died as a direct or indirect result of America’s abandonment of any citizen who “chooses” poverty.  The infant mortality rate among America’s poor now rivals that of Third World nations, and life expectancy among the poor is now roughly in the 55-60 (years of age) range.  This death toll has quietly risen every year since welfare was repealed.  There is no way around the fact that these policies kill, and most of America stands by unconcerned. 

Few have shown the courage or integrity to actually look at the consequences of these policies. So again, thank you Mr. Scheer.

Mad As Hell—apparently a right-lite “Democrat”—writes:

“ ... Bill Clinton, who looks like George Washington, Abe Lincoln and FDR rolled into one compared to Mad King George.”
-----
Hardly: Bill Clinton—not to forget Hillary Clinton’s two-for one bungling of health care—presided over “welfare reform” which orphans children and tortures their mothers. Bill Clinton “stood shoulder to shoulder”, or so he said, with Bush I on war in the mideast.

Wild Bill gained back some sympathy with that little-blue-dress gambit, but he’s a lot LIKE Dub—superficially attractive, awed by Dub’s dad, and complicit in the sadistic crypto-Mormon misogyny informing white-right policy for impoverished families, particularly families headed by females.

Democrats had better lose these party “leaders”—not only on domestic social policy, but on the “support Israel” scam which is at the heart of most of the mishegas in the mideast.

Quick: RUN ...

@T / http://DeepEndNews.com

What I read here all translates as the following:

We don’t want to win back the House from the fascists in November.

We don’t want to win back the Senate from the fascists in November.

We don’t want to win back the Presidency from fascist Mad King George, the most dangerous threat our Democracy has seen since the Civil War, in 2008.

No, what we want is intellectual purity, to purge anyone who doesn’t follow the old, FAILED left-wing Democratic policies that led to SO many effective Republican and neo-fascist attacks. 
We don’t care if, when we have the ripest opportunity to save our nation from the fascists completing their takeover, we split ourselves and squander the chance.

Nope, instead let’s out-Republican the Republicans by attacking Bill Clinton, who looks like George Washington, Abe Lincoln and FDR rolled into one compared to Mad King George.

That’s how I translate most of your comments.

Abba Eban said about the Palestinians: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” He might just as well have been talking about today’s Democratic party here in the USA.

Even Richard Nixon favored a guaranteed income.

How the heck do the Clintons think a SINGLE parent can go to a low-paying job AND raise children? “It takes a village,” right? Well, believe it or not, most single parents in the U.S. aren’t in “villages”.

Remember women’s liberation? The Clintons, and other “centrists” in and out of the supposedly-Democratic Party co-opted and killed the women’s movement—substituting a mostly-middle-class “gay” rights diversion—by defining “liberation” as working outside the “home”.

("Home"? Ha: who raised Chelsea? Who did the laundry, cooking, cleaning? Not Hillary and Wild Bill, we betcha. Maybe they don’t realize that “welfare” families rarely have servants?)

Hillary Clinton’s come a long way down the wrong road since she worked for the Black Panthers.

@T / deependnews.com

Poster G. Anderson feels Clinton has caused deadbeat dads - the men who refused to pay child support after a divorce - called “non- custodial parents” - to face loss of drivers licence, their Federal income tax refund, and to even have part of their wages (up to 50% of wage net of the non- custodial parents’ “living costs")set aside to support their children.

WOW

I never realized welfare reform as signed by Clinton caused this effect.

The ladies in NOW -middle class career women - “are doomed” because making men pay child support amounts to making men pay to have children - as in “Who else pays to have children?” So marriage is will stop except amoung the “illegals or fundies who don’t know any better”

All these thoughts (arising because of the Robert Sheer piece on the need to not claim Clinton welfare reform a success until we get statistics on the fate of those kicked off of welfare after 5 years) are very interesting.

Of course by now you’ve
realized the Bill Clinton was “Republican lite”, a carefully groomed Democrat that could do what no Republican ever could, get rid of Welfare..

Instead of welfare recipients being a burden to government, they became a burden to non- custodial parents who took up the slack, with incentives of nice fat matching grants from the feds for every dollar the state collects in child support, there’s now a vicious government agency that will strip the non custodial parent of their drivers licence, income tax refund and 50% of their gross income.

If Clintons NOW backers had realized what they were supporting, before rushing in to punish that “myhological creature” known as the deadbeat dad, they might have stopped before mom, A.K.A. non custodial parent, was caught in their gun sights as well. But by now it is too late for a whole generation, the middle class career women are doomed along with the men.

Who else pays to have children? 

So now the only people who will get married are the illegals or fundies who don’t know any better...That’s what comes of holding Marriage hostage to a failed social system looking for scapegoats…

Re; 20945-Jamez

I don’t know where you and your niece are from, but obviously it’s not from where I live. I’m a divorced mother of three and the proud owner of a deadbeat dad who owes more than $11,000 in back child support.  I have worked two and sometimes three jobs for the last 10 years and am currently working two jobs while attending school full-time.  I am not lazy, and I am taking care of my children, and yes, I do need some assistance. I’m allotted $200/month in food stamps, and a medical card, which can only be used where the medical service providers accept them.  I have the choice of two dentists...both of which are 65 miles away. I’m not allowed any other benefits because of the fact that I am going to school full-time, which makes me ineligible.
I regret that there are those who do abuse the system, and I realize it’s frustrating to see that happen and feel as if you are paying for it. However, I resent being put into the same category as those who are abusing the system. I’m working very hard to better myself, and the happiest day of my life will be when I am no longer forced to be on any type of public assistance.

Papau asks:

“Now I do not understand how the new National Bank would work or even why it is needed?”

* The bank would be owned by the U.S. Government

* Congress would authorize a program to train workers to rehabilitate housing in a designated depressed neighborhood that would create jobs and provide decent homes.

* The National Bank would issue a government check to a federal agency that would issue a competitive contract to a private corporation to rehabilitate the designated housing.

* The work would get done by the private corporation (who would pay taxes on their profit as normal)

* Wages would be paid and income taxes would be withheld as normal

* Workers would spend their wages in the market

* Sales taxes would be collected as normal

* Company profits on sale of products would be taxed as normal

* Proceeds from sales would be re-invested in production

* And the money circulation cycles would continue

* All the money that had been generated (out of thin air) by the National Bank would return to the IRS

* And not a dime’s worth of interest would have been paid out to bond holders by taxpayers.

Just think what it would mean in terms of ending poverty.

poor. The best estimates from the Census Bureau and other data, however, indicate that at least a million welfare recipients have neither jobs nor benefits and have sunk deeper into poverty”, and weaves this into a condemnation of Clinton.  Child poverty is again on the rise in Arkansas and throughout the nation, but that is occurring under the growing economy administered by G. W. Bush.  So now we are to vote against a Hillary - if nominated - and put in a Bush clone so as to help the poor.  The logic escapes me. 

But at least Scheer has his heart in the right place and his facts correct.

Most of the Clinton bashing posters commenting this article unfortunately do not have their facts correct. 

And there is no discussion of John C’s proposal to educate, to train, and to put people to useful work via public works spending and a government as the “employer of last resort”, with a new “National Bank” assisting in the funding of such employment.  Now I do not understand how the new National Bank would work or even why it is needed, but I’d have thought there would have been at least some discussion of the “employer of last resort” concept - or of John C’s idea that Clinton ended the Democratic Party being the party of the working man (I think this refers to NAFTA).

One of the largest Federal Government boosts to the life of the poor, the Clinton 1993 increase in the earned income tax credit (the positive benefits to the poor noted by poster Robert JS Ross), is described by another poster as manipulating income thru earned income tax credit so as to get more folks above the poverty level - well - that is the goal isn’t?

Meanwhile, a “Jamez” has a relative renting a 4 bedroom 2 and1/2 bath, one car garage home with all but $100 dollars a month of the rent covered by some sort of subsidy (from what program is not stated - I am not aware of any such a program - Section 8 housing certainly does not come in “4 bedroom 2 and1/2 bath, one car garage home” units).  And the lady has timed the births of her 5 children so as to avoid the 5 year cut-off over the last 16 or more years - despite the fact the law she was avoiding did not exist in 1994 when she timed the birth of her second child based on the story.  Sure sounds like a classic Reagan Cadillac welfare queen (who by the way could never be found) story.

A comment by saintknowitall asked “How exactly do rich people make others poor?” suggesting he is unfamiliar with or disagrees with the Bible’s solution to the effects of a permanent rich class and the resulting poverty - namely the jubilee concept of every 50 years resetting the wealth (Lev. 25:8-17) and (Lev. 25:23-34) and (Lev. 25:35-55).  The Bible suggest that no one had the right to take advantage and enslave anyone, much less to humiliate him as a slave by taking away from him the necessities of life (Gen 1:26-31; 2:15). The gift of the Land was made on the basis of equal distribution to the needy of the families on the part of Joshua (Jos 13-21). All had to be made equal; no one should be in need or poor.  This concept only died out when folks wanted a monarchy (read GOP type voters) around the time of (1Sam 8:10-22). Indeed the Bible’s demand that no one exploit the Land indiscriminately such that it becomes irreparably impoverished to the detriment of everyone was the first ego law - that no doubt screwed the desires of the rich! The jubilee concept died out sometime after the return from the Exile in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 5:1-11) - but it seems a good idea to me!  And even if you do not believe in God or are not religious, simple ethics suggests rich folks by refusing to pay needed taxes, thereby denying funds to poverty programs, is wrong.

A poster Al Barrs correctly notes that Clinton reluctantly signed welfare reform and a poster SamSnedegar notes that Democrats hoped to “fix” the law later, saying perhaps incorrectly that “no such thing happened” since the changes Clinton forced the GOP to agree to in order to get him to not veto and which were passed later were no doubt less than some Democrats wanted.

Poster John Earl said Clinton set out to demonize poor women - which is again something I missed seeing both in the Sheer article and in real life - and poster Margie Bernard claimed Clinton balanced the budget on the backs of welfare mothers - a shaving of a Federal $10 billion Welfare cost item (a $100 B over 10 years savings was projected in 1996 due to the changes in federal welfare programs - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) now making block grants to states, and states having a little discretion to decide who gets cash and other assistance and how much recipients get) somehow ending a $300 billion dollar deficit problem.

Amazing how a Scheer discussion on the need for data on post welfare life of the folks kicked off welfare because of the 5 year requirement became a bash Clinton fest.

The reality is you can’t have wealthy people without having poor people. It’s a Natural Law. The more wealth the minority controls the less wealth the majority can access. You don’t need a calculator to figure it out.

We pander after millionaires in the hope a few crumbs will fall our way. We give them everything they want and slurp up their byproducts. We feed insatiable greed with our lifeblood.

Look at us. Was there ever a more pathetic species? Imagine how difficult it will be to socially engineer our way out of this one.

Nothing makes Bob Scheer’s point better than Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine. Millions of minds must have been changed about Clinton’s “workfare” after seeing that film.
I know people for whom the film was something of an epiphany and anyone who walked out of the theatre unmoved by the “workfare” mother must be brain dead. Many Americans did not truly understand the situation when they admired Clinton for his welfare gutting legislation because for so many decades we were fed expose after expose of “cheating” mothers (usually portrayed as black or Puerto Rican)on TV and in the Press. Everyone was “mad as hell” about “lazy” people “getting away” with welfare fraud. But, the true bait and switch dirty little secret was the insignificance of those few cheaters compared to the gazillions of dollars siphoned off by the mother of all welfare greed - American corporations.
If Bill Clinton had actually seen Bowling For Columbine - in which a single, black “welfare” mother working 2 “workfare” jobs, from the crack of dawn til late at night, never sees the troubled child she is “raising” - maybe he would have been ashamed of himself?  His accomodationist Presidency ought to be discussed more often so we can avoid having another RepubliCrat administration. (Isn’t that why Nader got so many votes? )

Hello John C, the subject of this discussion is “Robert Scheer: Clinton Ended Welfare, Not Poverty”. Your two posts #20601 and #21041 are neither subject related nor substantive in nature. They do however serve as lightning rod for a cascade of juvenile banter, gloating on the same old us vs them, liberal vs conservative.
If you are not tired of it, I am.

“where’s the beef?”

There have been 40 comments on this subject of poverty, and mine was the only one that had a positive and bold idea about how to address it. It was the second comment on this thread (in case you want to take another look at it).

And there was no positive idea offered in the Scheer article either - just a bashing of Clinton.

Almost all of the comments were from liberals and yet not one of you gave it a passing glance. It is why (in my opinion) the liberals are really a lost cause. They really are - nothing but a bunch of whiners and lemings who have lost the ability to think through problems logically, as they did, once upon a time, in the 1930’s when a liberal was a problem solver above all else.

Shame on all of you!

The other America by Michael Harrington was published 1962and just a little more than 40 years nothing has changed.  Even in the best of times America fails her poor people. President Clinton must have read it, knows about poverty in America.  It is welfare reform that tarnishes his name and Iraq will tarnish Hillary. 

That is my big disappointment of the Clintons, in the end they are just politicians.

Marc Rich and his partner Green are still the largest tax cheaters ever in the US history. The question is, why Clinton pardon these two just days before his term was over?

The poverty threshold for a family of 4 including 2 children was $18,244 in 2002. It was much lower during Clinton years. By manipulating income thru earned income tax credit, Clinton was able to add few hundred bucks to pass the threshold level, effectively wiped out a lot of poverty. This is merely a number game. Were they really out of poverty by few hundred bucks more each year? Of course not.

Politicians are low, real low. Politicians with law degrees are doubly low.

“I didn’t have sex with Monica” - Clinton looked straight into camera and broadcasted the statement to national viewers.

I find it amazing how people who are not (currently) faced with difficulties have such little care for those who are, or believe that the most horrid anecdotes are commonplace, even when not even true in the specific.

Further the earmarks that channel millions of those same tax dollars are somehow less of a problem than a few dollars chiseled from a welfare check.

FEMA spent more to provide cheap tarps than new roofs would have cost, and 95% of that money was siphoned off the top.

A massive employment program of non-aliens to actually build roofs with that money would have benefitted all around, but would have raised howls of protest from folk who have no problem with the same money going to open crony fraud.

It would be nice to see some perspective, the fraud of one earmark could provide welfare to thousands, or build a school, or library, and just maybe make the difference between a competant tradesman who can help your life or one who desperation has put their life on another path leading to your suffering.

A bad start does not excuse bad behavior, but it does make it more likely, and the end result is irrelevant to excuses, or ideology, or anything but practical reality. And a mean, shortsighted, selfish, start will produce a meaner and nastier finish.

Let’s face it. Any help for the poor was tolerated simply because it helped keep them from turning into Communists during the Cold War. One of the first things the government did once there was no longer a threat from the Commies, was to get rid of most types of help for the poor.

I was reading in the paper the other day that in a wealthy county of Virginia, you get housing assistance if you *only* make $90,000 a year. But there is a huge gap between what many people earn, and what they have to pay for housing.

Jamez, the situation you describe is not what the majority of folks “on the dole” face. You remind me of Reagan. He tried to make it seem that welfare was just another get rich scheme. It is—for the Corporate Welfare Queens!

America’s poor and its middle-class have been getting shafted. Happy Labor Day!

According to a report by Goldman Sachs economists, “the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor’s share of national income.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2 006/08/29/AR2006082901042.html?referrer=email&referrer= email&referrer=email

I have a niece on welfare, she has 4 children all, by different fathers.  A total of 5 families are involved including my own.  The welfare reform takes the AFDC protion of the money she receives out of the picture after 4 years.  She times the births to cordinate with the 4 years.  In the meantime, she gets housing assistance, she has to pay only 100 dollars a month for a 4 bedroom 2 and1/2 bath, one car garage home.  Her electric, phone and water are subsidized by welfare.  She gets medicare and medicaid, major, minor and dental ALL for free.  She has the food debit card for all her food needs.  She also gets free veterinary services and extra funds for food for her cat and dog.  She gets coligic face peels for free to help her self esteem because of scaring to her face, because she liked to pick her pimples.  She only has to pay 25.00 a week for child care for all 4 children when she is suppose to be looking for work, which she doesn’t. Finally, she distributes the 4 children into other family members IRS returns...in other words at the begining of every year she collects more than 4000.00 from the IRS via the child tax care credit and earned income credit, while still allowing some money to be kept by these family members for their trouble.  All their medications are free, and she is so spoiled that she went to the emergency room the other day for a staple in her finger, and last week she took one of the kids to the emergency room for a stiff neck, after she called the premedics that came out and told her he had a stiff neck only. In the meantime the 5 families give everything imaginable to these kids and her.  They all have designer clothes, shoes, and allot of gold jewelry, the kids have 4 different gaming systems, 4 TV’s, VCR’s and DVD players.  They even have $100.00 bottles of cologne.  My niece has a new used car ever 2 years, she changes her furniture every year, has a cell phones, all the drugs she wants, and the kids eat at fast food resturants everyday on that card.  The poor in this country live better than middle income earners all over the world.  The government does not create money, they seize it at gunpoint from hard working members of the USA and distribute it to allot of lazy people.  So, don’t tell me about poor people, I witness it everyday.  My older brother is on SSI because he is an alcoholic with all the same benefits as above.  Two of my 4 sisters are on SSI for being drug addicts.  They all get all the assistance I mentioned above with the extra kicker of legal drugs to help with their problems.  They all take these drugs to get high, sell off a portion of them to by crack etc.  They make 2000.00 a month selling their pills, they collect 600.00 from SSI and all their basic needs are taken care of.  $0.54 cents of every dollar the federal government collects is spent on entilements.  Welfare reform my butt, so after 4 years you can’t get an AFDC check, big damn deal.  If you can’t take care of your damn self then you have no business having children you can not take care of either; period!!!!! Please my nieces kids are HER livelyhood.  And guess what she’s poor, my brother and sisters are considered poor.  Hell they make more money then I do working 50 hours a week, while their getting drunk, high or just laying on their backs.  You bleeding hearts out there need to give up you entire paychecks, lives and all you have to offer to help these poor people and leave the rest of us alone.  The truly poor...old people, truly disabled children etc. mostly don’t get the help they need, because of lazy, fraud bums like some in my family along with all the illegal aliens that are not citizens sucking us dry.  I am an American Indian Female and I’m feed up with the distortions of the truth.

I am not a Clinton fan.  But I do believe welfare reform was a good thing.  There are jobs for previous welfare recipients!  We can STOP ILLEGALS from entering our country and that in turn will provide a great many jobs that these many prior welfare recipients may have.
If illegals manage to live off of this income and some even send money home, it’s difficult to understand why a prior welfare recipient cannot be self-supporting on this same income.

The arguments that people who once recieved free money now have to work will never convince me that welfare reform was not a good thing. Now they can struggle to make ends meet by the “sweat of their brow” just like me.  Unless someone is faced with the fact that there is no free lunch they will never improve themselves nor respect the accomplishments of those who do.

“.....federal government’s responsibility to help the nation’s poor.”

What part of the US Constitution is that in??????

How exactly do rich people make others poor? 

“..In Arkansas today,”

Now there is a national indicator if I ever saw one.  LOL

As far as poverty is concerned, cut out cell phones, alcohol and cigarettes and there would be much more money to “live” on.  Additionally, “census data” does not attempt to track and measure income from the underground economy.

Are there poor people?  Yes.  Who is responsible to help them?  Their local communities. the Federal Government will ALWAYS fail.  ALWAYS!!!!

Scheer on poverty and Clinton’s boast of having ended it for welfare Mother’s is an important eye opener for the future of our nation.  My admiration for the Clinton’s diminish daily.

Welfare, medical assistance, food stamps, all have dropped to the almost non-existant level.  NO president can claim responsibility for having corrected this shameful and unforgivable life style so many Americans are forced to live.  As I write, I’d bet my last few bottom dollars that there’s a bill in congress that will further drive these people deeper into that inescapable hole.  These are the forgotten people by the administration, UNTIL, through desperation, they are forced to go get food for their families.

Lives are lost through this desperation.  People are jailed because of it.  One thing I know, if I were a young couple with children that I had no means of providing food for, I’d go get it!  I’d steal.  I’d rob.  But I’d get it for them until they got me!

So, out tax billions continue to pour into Iraq for an UNwinnable war; our soldiers continue to die; innocent Iraqis continue to die and America’s poorest of the poor continue to hurt for the very basics of survival!  Tell me, what is the moral of this story?

Re: Robert Scheer: Clinton Ended Welfare, Not Poverty

Let me see if I understand this…

X-president Bill Clinton is still crowing 10 years after the fact that “he” lead the fight to end welfare, WHICH HE VETOED TWICE BEFORE RELUCTANTLY CHANGING HIS STRATEGY TO DON’T LET ME BE LEFT BEHIND AND SIGNNG THE LEGISLATION THAT REPUBLICANS PASSED IN CONGRESS.

If that is Clintons legacy so be it. In his fading years he can only clain this one achievement which totally depended upon Republicans…

As far as the Clinton-welfare matter goes, he has a faulty memory about that. The only reason Clinton signed the bill into law instead of vetoing it was because he got snookered for once by Repubs. They sent him a bill he shouldn’t have signed thinking he would never do so, and he “fooled” them by agreeing to egregious provisions of the bill . . . some democrats hoped to “fix” the law later, but no such thing happened and Clinton was responsible for a travesty and a tragedy.

Why did he sign a piece of garbage into law? Because he promised to “end welfare as we know it,” and the GOP planned to use a veto of the welfare reform act to kick his sorry ass out of the White House in 96. I doubt that would have happened, but Clinton wasn’t taking any chances so he caved and did the most egregiously wrong thing that he did while in office.

I suppose he knows how quickly they forget . . . but he really ought never to MENTION welfare in all his life. It was the lowest point in his Presidency and the stupidest thing he did, and I include his dalliance with the fat sabra fellationist.

A great deal of IRS time is taken up in auditing
those who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit.
5000 IRS auditors who specialize in Estate Tax returns are to be fired.

Don’t call it class warfare. No truth allowed here. Move along.

The only way to truly end poverty is to have the U.S. Congress control to which sector (public or private)the labor and resources of the nation are directed. The private sector cannot be expected to provide jobs and a decent wage for uneducated unskilled people, and where there is no profit potential. Only the government can do that. Only the government has the ability to create the money to educate, to train, and to put people to useful work. In order to do it the government needs to be able create money the same way that a private bank does it - out of thin air. The money created can be “spent” into the economy through useful public works (of all kinds). All of the money that is spent into the economy will return eventually to the treasury in the form of taxes, just the same way that the money spent by business returns to the business in the prices paid for the goods produced.

It’s not all that complicated. All it takes is to establish a truly national bank (which the Federal Reserve is not)and a committment to be the “employer of last resort”. If Lincoln could do it (with Greenbacks) so could we.

Just a thought folks!

It would be interesting to learn form what part of the country the comments com.  Unfortunately, the e-mail addresses do not reveal that. I am astonished at the hostility toward Bill Clinton brought out by Scheer’s comments.

... am I to understand that this fellow clinton was also a liar ... who might he have been ... the name rings a bell ... like Pavlov’s puppies the idiots on ‘our’ side salivate at the mentionning of such an illustrious name .. beware of the whore of the same name following that country hick ... another corp.whore.

Until you guys accept the fact that you must watch them all -specially that clinton whore -the female one- you will be electing thieves .. after thousands of years of supposed evolution we still elect the likes of what we have in Congress today .. shhhheeeeessssshhhh!!!

HeHeHe back attcha Sparky.
prov·erb (prov“ûrb”) n. 1. A short, pithy saying in frequent and widespread use that expresses a basic truth or practical precept. 2. Proverbs.

If ‘hitting the nail on the head isn’t a short, pithy proverbial saying...’I don’t know what is! The basic truth is that Bob has again nailed it by revealing the emperor had no clothes and is now trying to do and say anything that will pave the way for Hillary and himself to get back into the White House. The Clintons and their cohorts are the same people who killed the short-lived, mid-term, Democratic Party mini-conventions and then founded the NDC. This became the means to deny the troops in the State Democratic Party trenches from having any say in determining party policy or helping to write the party platform. The NDC has effectively killed any notion that the Democratic Party is the party of the people. We have to wrest the party back from them.

I think that Clinton deserves credit for the numerous ways that he tried to eliminate dependence on the federal dole. Not many pols have the courage and determination to do something concrete to help people find work and get some tax advantages. He forced people to adopt the welfare reform act with a lot of cajoling because let’s face it-most pols could care less about the poor in this country. If they did care at all, the current situation would not exist, would it?
It is patently unfair to blame him poverty that existed before his term and continues to thrive. The proper blame should be directed towards the elitist juvenile delinquents who inhabit our Congress who only care about their next buck to finance their re-election and their earmark legislation that makes them look good in their hometowns.

If our elected representatives really cared about the people who elect them, they would raise the minimum wage, find ways to really lift people out of poverty etc. Clinton took a much entrenched system and tried to find something better that would improve the lives of ordinary citizens-for that he gets my kudos.

Rober JS Ross wrote “many otherwise progressive people, fails to acknowledge Clinton’s contribution to poverty redution through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).”

IRS define EITC as “The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) sometimes called the Earned Income Credit (EIC), is a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. Congress originally approved the tax credit legislation in 1975 in part to offset the burden of social security taxes and to provide an incentive to work. When the EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed, it results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for the credit.”

Poverty is defined as a family of 4 with income of less than $20,000. Assuming EITC lifted their income by 15% to non-poverty level of $23,000, I wonder if these $3,000 would make a huge difference in quality of life.

Our OWN GOVERNMENT with its ‘welfare reform’ rules is saying to its own citizens:

Don’t have a job ?  Drop dead and go live under a bridge in a cardboard box.

Can’t pay your electric bill ?  We’ll disconnect your power.

Can’t pay your gas bill ?  We’ll disconnect your heat.

Can’t pay your phone bill ?  We’ll shut off your phone so you can’t get any job offers.

Can’t pay your water bill ?  We’ll shut off your water.

Don’t have water or electricity in your house ?
We’ll have to evict you . It’s a health hazard.
Go live under a bridge in a cardboard box.

Can’t pay your property taxes ? Get out of your house.

Been unemployed more than 6 months - we’ll no longer count you in the loosely-termed ‘Jobless Rate’.  That way, the Jobless Rate always stays at 5 percent - because they only count the people who are unemployed for less than six months.
If you multiply 2-six month periods from 2000 - 2006 (7 years) that is 14 periods of 5 percent of the people losing their jobs - or a true jobless rate of SEVENTY percent. What distortion by the media of the true situation. What a loss of our freedoms and rights as Americans.

Bob Scheer is right to criticize Bill Clinton’s confusion over welfare roll reduction and poverty reduction.  But Scheer, along with many otherwise progressive people, fails to acknowledge Clinton’s contribution to poverty redution through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the EITC reduced family poverty by 21% in 2003, from 17.2% to 13.6%.  The major expansion of the EITC came in Clinton’s first budget, 1993.

I want to hear the proverb about hitting the nail on its head. Hehehe, just kidding.

I really want to know about Clinton’s reference to 60% of the folks who got off welfare getting jobs-- What about the 40% who didn’t? Are they the ones living in tents by the river, the ones who give up their children to relatives, neighbors, or DCF because they have no where to house them?

Speaking of Bill Clinton (but certainly not excluding the present WH resident) some Founding Father should have included in Article II of the Constitution that not only did an applicant for president of this US have to be 35, natural-born and 14 years a US resident, all narcissists were automatically disqualified.

The fact of the matter is that the Federal Reserve Board deliberately keeps some Americans unemployed so as to keep inflation down.  Interest rates are raised when unemployment gets “too low.”

OK, so getting off welfare is not the same thing as getting out from under poverty, and the unemployment figures are not real because the people who are off the unemployment rolls are not “unemployed” because many are not considered part of the labor force.

NOW,for a real “cold water” shocker, visualise what our welfare and unemployment statistics would look like if we suddenly stopped using our troops as “peacekeepers” or gatekeepers to hold out drugs and illegals and demilitarized our foreign troops and brought them home !

Here we go again . . . no one wants to take on the real issue here any more than they do the matter of oil being the real issue about war and aggression by the USA . . .

It’s all about OVERPOPULATION, the welfare-poverty question.

If you don’t solve the population explosion you will never get beyond just talking about poverty. In a society where more than ninety per cent of the jobs are meaningless and unproductive the unemployed and underemployed make up too large a segment to accomodate. It is a minor miracle that fifty million or so don’t die of starvation every year. The reason they don’t? They are subsidized by loans from China and partly by “loans” comprising negative trade balance, aka American trade dollars spent abroad which don’t get redeemed. If we had to send all the grain, dairy products, etc. that foreign suppliers COULD buy, there would not be enough food here to feed the multitudes of poor. As it stands, foreign buyers can get everything we sell from some other supplier for far less money, which is why our trade balance is so egregious.

‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’ - these are just two of the labels and symbols with which politicians game the electorate to make money from the same group of wealthy interests whose only concern is their own profit.  Clinton just happens to be one of the more capable of these salesmen.  During his presidency, he talked like a liberal while screwing people (NAFTA, GATT etc.) just like any Republican.  That’s why Wall Street adores him and gives him favorable media exposure; he pushed through their policies without generating any public backlash.  In fact, the public drank the poison happily.  Clinton is probably the best bamboozler I’ve ever run across.

This is ugly face of the society. There is no difference between te democratic party and republican. Both are vehicles for the elite to transfer wealth from poor and middle class to the rich and superrich. This is what this society is about. The rich and superrich own all instruments of government; corporate media is used to convince us that we are living in a democracy.

Slick Willie’s got a slippery tongue - no doubt about that! Shamefully blowing your ex-prez horn in Op-Eds has plenty of precedents, but why couldn’t the guy use the opportunity to speak to something positive? Corporate welfare in the form of regressive taxation, US contractors feasting at our trough in Iraq etc.

At least he didn’t pull a George McGovern and spend the whole article chastising unions for all thier outrageous demands such as healthcare benefits which are keeping our corporations from competing abroad…

Clinton is a conservative democrat, which in the South is the same thing as being a Republican. A liberal democrat can’t get elected anywhere in the South. Masquerading as democrat, Clinton was able to abolish welfare, never mind poverty, because that isn’t what our plutocrats want. The more poverty there is, the more they can squeeze wages to increase their profits.

Our middleclass has ignored the squeeze so far because they didn’t think it effected them, but of course it does. Downward pressure on wages is now depressing middleclass income as illustrated by the 2005 Census Report.

One can only wonder when middleclass Americans will wake up to the Republicans stealth attacks on their living standards.

Clinton’s not the only big Dem who’s gone deaf, dumb and blind about “welfare reform”: they all have.

The Democrats haven’t been worth shooting since the Kennedys and King were assassinated. We (the non-right: Democrats, the gullible “greens”, present non-voters) have to take this party back.

And why in the world doesn’t Angelides support the universal health care bill for California? If he wants to be Governor, he’d better.

@T / http://DeepEndNews.com

When Clinton set out to demonize poor women, while at the same time he and Ron Brown et al. passionately courted Corporate Welfare Queens, I lost all respect for him.

It seems that most people lost their faith in the man from Hope when the tales of wayward cigars and a stained dress hit the media circuit.

But I’d already begun to distance myself from the Dems because of Welfare Reform. I voted for Bob Dole just for the heck of it in the next presidential race. ( Since then it’s been Nader. )

I recently asked that MoveOn take me off their rolls after the anti-GOP organization sent out an email pushing Obama’s agenda. He’s another Clinton when it comes to triangulating the issues. My fear is that MoveOn will get behind Hillary Clinton, who is a DNC golem cut from her husband’s moldering cloth.

I’ve worked with an organization in my state Alabama Arise for years. Poverty is real in this country. I didn’t need Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans to realise this. America could do so much to alleviate poverty if it found a leader who actually cared.

http://www.alarise.org/

I hate to admit it, but at the time I was for welfare reform, limiting the time people could be on welfare, etc.  But having seen the results--that there was such concern for getting people off the dole, but little for ensuring they earned a living wage. With the shameful and sinful failure of Congress to raise the minimum wage--I’d like to see THEM trying to make it on $5.15 an hour!!--it becomes even more imperative that we help those who are struggling and not just shove them into urban ghettos so we don’t have to see them.

Clinton has been a major disappointment in the last few years--his support of the war, his patent self-aggrandizing (as in the NYT op-ed piece).  Frankly, I’m fed up with the whole lot of ‘em, Republicans and Democrats alike, and strongly favor a People’s Revolution!  Anyone wanna join me??

Oh yeah,

it;s pretty clear that Clinton is a neoliberal who has no compunction about using the poor to expand his public image.

The idea that kicking off people from welfare somehow makes their lives magically better is idiotic...now where’s that rhodes scholar defence...oops guess class war is okay in oxford - shocking I know.

Clinton had succeeded in welfare to workfare endeavor. To lift poverty, former welfare recipient must earn more from working than from welfare check. No one family is able to survive on minumum wage, let alone solving poverty issue.

Clinton can take whatever credit he wants but I am not about to give any.

Politicians ought to stop making wild claims.

Unfortunately, having children requires loads of energy, time, and money.  Until people understand this before having kids then there will always be children born to people who lack one of these three crucial elements.  Freedom is the ability to make bad choices.  I don’t feel complelled to donate my money to make up for poor choices by others. 
On the other hand, if people want to live in a socialist utopia, I am all in favor of funding sex education, free contractption, free abortion, and free sterilization.  I will not, however, continue to financially support people who are ignorant and irresponsible with their reproductive organs.  One or the other.

Both my parents needed assistance when they were children.  The assistance given was very basic but they were very thankful to receive the help.  Food given was beans, rice, cheese, potatoes, uncolored margarine--not well advertised (expensive) brand name foods.  The clothing given was also generic and everyone in their school knew who was getting the “free” clothes.  It gave children an incentive to get off of the welfare system.  I think that experience helped my parents to become self-sufficient and financially successful.  Today you see people living in nice apartments with most of their rent paid by Section 8, wearing designer clothes, and buying high priced supermarket foods.  Today there isn’t the stigma of being on welfare and one can easily hide the fact.  I think if it was significantly less glamorous to get the free money, many would opt out of the system.

Yes, it’s necessary for people like Scheer and all Democrats to reveal the scams that the Clintons continue to perpetrate on the American people. Clinton has been a disaster for the Democratic Party that once was a party for the ordinary working folks, and now is just a second rate hanger-on party - its only objective being to maybe win an election once in a while. Since Clinton, principled Democratic leadership has been reduced to a handful of people, and that does not include the presumed front runners like Hillary, Kerry, Biden, et al who are totally engrossed in political strategy - not moral principles.

Pres. Clinton is right. The Republicans have hurt the poor .We have other steps to undertake to improve workfare . Robert,you certainly know how Republicans want to put us in a Spencer- Rand system[ falsely called Social Darwinism] but put their friends on the government payroll.

Clinton balanced the budget on the backs of welfare mothers. Their sons fight Bush’s war while he unbalances it. As always, Bob, you hit the nail on its proverbial head!

Of course Clinton didn’t know any of the people right here in the Valley who are off the welfare rolls because he threw them off; they eat in a local church, get meager housing in a really awful complex, 10-12 to a tiny 2 room place with bathroom facilities down the hall - and the mom, one I know personally, works all day cleaning people’s homes. No welfare, but REAL POVERTY!  Or the kids my daughter teaches, who usually come to school without breakfast, and are sleepy because they worked for a few hours trying to earn a few bucks at night - welfare? No, but poverty, absolutely.

One more time, you told it so clearly it’s difficult to fathom why EVERYONE doesn’t understand the relatioship between welfare and poverty.  Not too different than figures on unemployment released by the govt - if you fall of the rolls, you simply are no longer counted - and there is more poverty again!  Thanks, Bob, for constantly telling it like it is!