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May 24, 2013
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 Truthdigger of the Week: Peter EdelmanPosted on Apr 13, 2012
One of the ultimate acts of speaking truth to power occurs when one actually occupies a position of power, as is the case with this week’s Truthdigger, former Clinton administration official Peter Edelman. In 1996, Edelman resigned from his post as assistant secretary of Health and Human Services to protest the welfare reform the Clinton administration had just enacted. In resigning, Edelman told his staff: “I have devoted the last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the opposite direction.” As Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer wrote Thursday:
Sometimes, vindication takes awhile—for Edelman, it took nearly two decades. Last Saturday, a New York Times report confirmed what he said roughly 16 years ago: The welfare reform championed in the ’90s has created a slew of new problems for poor families and those living below the poverty line in these troubled economic times. Advertisement
Here’s a little background on welfare reform in the U.S.: In the mid-’90s, then-President Bill Clinton said he would “end welfare as we know it.” To do that, he scrapped the old welfare program—which in part delivered matching federal funds to states while giving the poor extensive rights—for a more stringent system. The current system places a strict set of restrictions on families on welfare, including imposing time limits and work requirements. It also caps federal funds and allows states to turn away the poor. The result is harsher than what Edelman foresaw. “My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,” Edelman told The New York Times. “It’s been even worse than I thought it would be.” And on this week’s edition of Truthdig Radio, Edelman echoed that sentiment, saying that what Clinton did in 1996 “was terribly wrong.” Edelman, of course, turned out to be correct. As Scheer noted on Truthdig Radio on Thursday, the welfare reform legislation has been a disaster. For sticking to his principles and being one of the few who stood up and said no to welfare reform when it was initially passed, Edelman earns our title of Truthdigger of the Week.
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By oakland steve, April 16, 2012 at 11:04 am Link to this comment
To BrilliantBill and others who would ask, “What’s he done for us lately?” I would suggest that there might be few who have done anything similar in the last 16 years or the past 64 years (since my birth). Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus (Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre) are two others who come to mind.
Most of these people stay on their jobs, quietly taking a paycheck and write a book or get a job as a talking head on TV (John Dean is one who comes to mind).
I’ll never understand the public’s approval of Clinton; there wasn’t a move he ever made that wasn’t with his own success in mind (sexual, monetary and career), from his antics as a Rhodes scholar (draft dodging with an eye to a political career, and not inhaling) to his unceremoniously dumping of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and others for having the temerity to tell the truth.
Never forget that this was the jackass who helped destroy Mexico (and large segments of the industrial US) by signing NAFTA into law, not to mention his complicity in destroying the New Deal protections against a rapacious Wall Street with the end of Glass Steagall and the unleashing to the Derivative Thieves (sorry about your career, Brooksley Born).
His career as an enemy of the common good was capped when his daughter married a Hedge Fund manager (whose parents had been personal friends of the Clintons—and the father had just been paroled from a federal conviction for criminal fraud).
We really need people who care less for their paychecks and power than they do for their conscience and their oaths of office.
So, 16 years later, thanks.
Report thisBy rbe4free, April 16, 2012 at 10:11 am Link to this comment
A single act of remorse 16 years ago, does little for us at this time in our lives when the FED rules all governments across the world. All the so-called news we see in mainstream media is simply a distraction for those of us still trapped in the illusion of indoctrination and subordination to the current socio-economic systems and their masters.
The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families; The 1913 creation of the Fed fused the power of the Eight Families to the military and diplomatic might of the US government. If their overseas loans went unpaid, the oligarchs could now deploy US Marines to collect the debts. Morgan, Chase and Citibank formed an international lending syndicate.
Until this is disolved, there will never be any change for the better, except for the financial elite.
Report thisBy Judith Claire, April 16, 2012 at 6:30 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Yes, where are the whistle blowers…we need them now more than ever!
Report thisBy AnAlienEarthling, April 14, 2012 at 4:31 pm Link to this comment
... for which reasons I called Clinton the first Republican Democrat - he abandoned the fundamental, humanitarian grounding of the party!
Report thisUnfortunately, Obama - and his cabinet - is forged from the same base metal…
By litlpeep, April 14, 2012 at 8:55 am Link to this comment
It is very re-assuring to read this kind of honest criticism of the Democratic Party leadership starting with Bill Clinton (and pushed farther rightward by Barack Obama).
The mystery is why have we on the left not created an alternative party? Are we really too flaky to do this?
Maybe.
After all, sitting around wringing our hands and sighing knowingly is much easier. Besides this, it doesn’t require us to listen to our critics.
Who wants this blessing? Because only those of us capable of listening to and learning from our critics can climb out of the ruts we have drifted into and need a way out of.
The whole Democratic Party is in at least as bad a rut as is the Republican Party. Both party leaderships are primarily devoted to Wall Street, and to ignore this is bizarre, dangerous, and offers no healthy future.
Practice listening to your neighbors! Our whole planet depends upon how well we accomplish this.
Report thisBy BrilliantBill, April 13, 2012 at 6:12 pm Link to this comment
And what’s he done lately?
The truthdigger of the “week” is a guy who did something right 16 years ago?
Don’t get me wrong; I love Peter and Marian. However, perhaps this truthdigger of the week should become truthdigger of the month if you’re having so much trouble coming up with timely heroes.
Report thisBy gerard, April 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm Link to this comment
We desperately need a national “Whistle Blowers’ Award” Committee of intelligent, dedicated “noble men and women” to designate and award all whistle-blowers all the time in all areas of business, civic activities and government—a national Trulthdig Aware, if you will, that meets regularly, considers all possibilities, and decides democratically who most deserves attention and (possibly) legal help. This committee should have enough media “clout” to get wide popular attention.
Report thisSuch a regular and trustworthy process would help public agencies stop punishing people who are trying to make contributions to the solutions of grave problems in the “body politic.”