Feint left, go right.
Via Fox News:
When President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996, which he negotiated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, the left claimed people would starve. They didn’t. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, between 1996 and 2000, the employment rate for single mothers increased from 63 percent to 76 percent. In addition, the overall poverty rate has declined over the last half-century. Many able-bodied people who once relied on a government check found jobs and started earning a paycheck.
Good news, but the sideshow that has attached itself to so much of the Trump administration has distracted many from things that actually affect people’s lives.
President Trump last week signed an executive order, the purpose of which is, according to a White House press release, to reduce poverty in America “by promoting opportunity and economic mobility.”
Some of that is already happening with unemployment numbers the lowest they’ve been in 17 years.
The press release says that in 2017, “the Federal Government spent more than $700 billion on low-income assistance.” It notes that since modern welfare began during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the system has become a large bureaucracy with little incentive for people to look for work.
Conservatives like to say they measure success not by how many people receive government assistance, but by how many don’t. It is more than a sound bite. Helping people become independent of government is real compassion.