The Stimulus Bill Tearing Apart Clinton Welfare Reform?

I don't want to get into a huge debate if this was a Clinton idea , GOP idea, or a grand combination of the two. It was an accomplishment that Clinton gets benefit for and was a wise political move that provided dividends for the Democrats in more ways than one.

What is going under the radar is how this is being undermined in "Stimulus" bill. Democrat Mickey Kaus has two must read pieces on this at

The Welfare Issue is Alive, Alive!

and

Got Juice?

Kaus hits something key here:


2) I get an "Even ... liberal blogger" cite. Hahaha. Take that, Even the Liberal New Republic.

3) But the reference to liberalism isn't irrelevant, because the now-undermined welfare reform was the key to rebuilding confidence in (liberal) affirmative government. As Bill Clinton recognized, voters may well have been willing to let government spend, but they didn't trust old style liberals not to spend in actively destructive ways, like subsidizing an isolated underclass of non-working single mothers with a no-strings cash dole. It's a 75-25 values issue. Work yes. Welfare no. Even if welfare spending was only a tiny portion of the liberals' spending agenda, it poisoned the rest of it. Only when Clinton's New Democrats put an ostentatious "time limit" on welfare and required work did they regain the public confidence necessary to increase other kinds of spending (on work-related poverty-fighting benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, day care and Social Security, for example.)

A reemerging "welfare" issue is a potential killer, in other words, for Obama's big remaining plans, especially health care. If Dems seem determined to reinstate dependency--or at the least blind to the dangers of dependency--voters aren't going to trust them to spend trillions on universal health insurance and fortified pensions. It's hard to believe Obama doesn't realize this.

Again going outside my Conservative viewpoint and looking at this as pure politics I am amazed too. That is why as I mentioned below See Major Catholic Social Justice Lobby Hails Stimulus Package (They Need an Economist) that folks that have such grand plans seem to be blind that they may be hanging a noose for themselves as to their grander ambitions?

The far right at times leaves in a bubble no doubt. But the left lives in a much bigger bubble. I am pretty sure that the people that gave President Obama the margin to win signed on for this.