Trump just took a giant step towards actual welfare reform

New York Post ^ | 04/10/2018 | Kristina Rasmussen

[SeekAndFind]

President Trump’s new executive order on welfare reform has laid the groundwork to get more Americans get back to work while protecting and strengthening the safety net for the truly needy. Federal agencies must take advantage of this opportunity to roll back harmful Obama-era policies that have trapped families in dependency and cost taxpayers billions.

Right now, America combines near-record-low unemployment with near-record-high welfare dependency — the result of state-level eligibility exemptions, federal loopholes and policies that put work on the back burner. Many of these policies created incentives for able-bodied adults to sit on the sidelines — even though there is good, well-paying work available. The resulting safety net isn’t a safety net at all — it has entrapped able-bodied adults in dependency and threatened resources for the truly needy.

But welfare reform can change that. And the Trump administration has just given agency leaders a road map to do so.

The executive order, signed Tuesday afternoon, lays out principles to encourage economic mobility through work — a tactic that we’ve seen succeed in states across the nation. It calls for a strengthened work requirement for able-bodied adults, building off the requirement established in the 1996 bipartisan welfare reform that requires able-bodied adults on food stamps to work, train or volunteer for at least 20 hours per week.

Despite evidence that work requirements work — cutting time spent on welfare in half, doubling incomes and moving adults into over 600 diverse industries — the Obama administration approved waivers for those requirements in most states, citing high unemployment and severe job shortages.

What happened when states no longer required able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits? Predictably, the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps skyrocketed, more than tripling since 2000, while the cost to taxpayers went up fivefold.

[zerosix]

Well, NJ real reform was tossed out after ACLU, judges, liberal activists went out after them as well as ultimately the orginal Welfare Reform Act was “tweeked!”

Liberals showed up at every turn with “starving, emaciated women and their obese kids” cry that the evil Republicans plan to starve them to death!

Of course, everyone “advising” the RINO GOP ran for the hills and any teeth that really helped these generations of women and kids crawl out of chronic poverty!

Thanks to unelected bureaucrats running agencies charged with carrying out policy, sent the rules to the trash bins of history and moved welfare families out of public housing with Sec. 8 housing vouchers so they could move into Your neighborhoods and bring their crime, drugs and prostitution along with them!

[ridesthemiles]

IMO, EVERY person collecting any kind of benefits should have to re-qualify annually. There are thousands of able bodied persons collecting all kinds of benefits that can work-—they just refuse to & re continue to support them.

[Enlightened1]

BTTT