I get criticized for writing so much about how Arne Duncan with President Obama's permission has enabled billionaires to take over public school "reform". Gingrich even traveled with Arne to push reforms, all the while they were ignoring teachers. It is exactly what Newt Gingrich wanted years ago...free market schools. Do you really think these "reforms" can be undone? I don't.
Amazing how much effect that man, Newt Gingrich, and his ilk have had on our nation through the years because they were so pushy....and we were not. The Personal Responsibility Act, aka the Welfare Reform Act was part of Gingrich's Contract for America...aka Contract on America.
I have read this article from The American Prospect 1995 several times. The more I read the more I see how the
Personal Responsibility Act that was passed then and modified through the years has permanently affected our country's politics.
It's intent read as follows:
Roll No. 269: March 24, 1995
Personal Responsibility Act: By a recorded vote of 234 ayes to 199
noes, Roll No. 269, the House passed H.R. 4, to restore the American
family, reduce illegitimacy, control welfare spending, and reduce
welfare dependence.
Pages H3742-90
Here is more about the 1996 version signed into law by Bill Clinton and opposed by many groups including NOW.
The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWOR) (PL 104-193), also known as the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, was signed in to law on August 22, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. The Act is described by the U.S. Government as "a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform plan that will dramatically change the nation's welfare system into one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance. The law contains strong work requirements, a performance bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work -- including increased funding for child care and guaranteed medical coverage."
More from NOW:
In its September 13, 1996, "Legislative Update," NOW (the National Organization of Women) included the following: <2>
On August 22, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 Conference Report to accompany H.R. 3734,
the controversial legislation which repeals the 60 year old social safety net for the poor and requires welfare recipients to work. The legislation is very much like H.R. 4, the previous welfare bill that the President vetoed at the urging of NOW and other advocacy organizations. And, like the previous bill, the President received severe criticism from community activists, women's rights, social service advocacy, labor, minority, and religious groups in embracing this Republican-led effort to change the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. In response, the nominee promised at the Democratic National Convention that he would to make welfare reform "successful" by helping to create a million new jobs by the year 2000, with tax credits for companies who hire welfare recipients and from state plans which may utilize "savings" from welfare program cuts to create jobs for recipients.
Source WatchThe Republicans of today are even more into the act of repealing safety nets and gutting aid to the poor and needy. The
American Prospect article mentioned above notes that there are time bombs waiting not just in the welfare reform, but in the whole Contract set forth by the GOP at that time.
The Contract's long-term consequences, as revealed in the details of their legislative package, are likely to be more insidious. Over time the new proposals would gut the nation's safety net while creating a budgetary time bomb. The devil was never more in the details. In addition to the new tax breaks for social benefits, the Contract also promises a new tax-exempt savings account, a major new tax break for businesses, and that long-sought Republican goal, a capital gains tax cut. After seven years, when the Republicans' proposed balanced budget amendment would become effective, escalating revenue losses from the tax cuts would almost surely force major reductions in all social programs, including Medicare and Social Security. The Republicans do not admit to these consequences because they would be unpopular. But the Contract's budgetary arithmetic makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that this is what Gingrich's Republican followers seek to accomplish.
I said the Republicans never quit trying to push their policies. These were some of them in the 1995 bill, but you can see the same things going on today. They may be called by different names, but they are echoes of that earlier bill.
Although provisions phasing in the new rules would soften their immediate impact, the legislation calls for radical changes, including:
* new eligibility requirements that would deny benefits to more than half of current AFDC recip ients (if the requirements were fully effective immediately);
* an end to the legal right of the eligible poor, including the elderly and disabled poor, to cash and food assistance;
* a cap on total federal spending on cash, food, and housing assistance under a formula that would reduce real funds below current levels, impose larger cuts in the future, and force different groups of needy persons to compete for this diminishing pie;
* a shift of responsibility to the states for designing, administering, and paying for cash and food assistance programs, thus subjecting all of these programs to the political and fiscal pressures that have led states to cut the real value of welfare benefits in half since 1970; and
* a bar against legally admitted aliens, including children and many political refugees, from receiving virtually all forms of public assistance except for emergency medical care.
The poor, needy, and out of work are still under assault from the right. This week 11 Democrats voted No on extending unemployment benefits. 7 Democrats abstained. That's better than our usual record since so many Blue Dogs lost.
The call to be bipartisan is still being heard from the leaders of our party, even after we lost the House this month. You can not expect those raised with the tenets of Gingrich's Contract on America to compromise. If we keep expecting it, we will keep losing to them.
I have never forgotten what Molly Ivins said in November 2006 about bipartisanship. She died in January 2007, but she lived to see us take the House and Senate. Then she like the rest of us heard the cries for "bipartisanship" and "post-partisanship".
Molly Ivins: NOW They’re All for BipartisanshipPosted on Nov 13, 2006
By Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas—Having watched election coverage nonstop all week, I sometimes wake up screaming, “Bipartisanship!” and scare myself.
Of all the viral members of the media who have been suggesting that the Dems cooperate with their political opponents, the one who rendered me almost unconscious with surprise was Newt Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich, the Boy Scout. Newt Gingrich, the man who sat there and watched Congress impeach and try Bill Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair while he, Newt Gingrich, was lying about having an extramarital affair. (This all took place during his second marriage. The first one ended when he told his wife he was divorcing her while she was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment.)
This is the level of Republican hypocrisy that reminds us all how far the Dems have to go. I tell you what. Let’s all hold hands together and sing, “Oh, the Farmers and the Cowboys Should Be Friends!” Just not, please, Newt Gingrich, the man whose contribution to civility was to recommend that all Democrats be referred to with such words as cowards, traitors, commies, godless, liars and other such bipartisan-promoting terms.
Please, anyone but Newt.
Amen to that.
And please no more bipartisanship when the other side has vowed to bring you down.
Just FYI Gingrich came forth with a new Contract with America in January of this year.
Gingrich talks 'Contract with America' III think this part is interesting. The Hill links leads to NewsMax, but I don't link to NewsMax. Here is a paragraph that caught my eye.
An Alternative Party — Not an Opposition Party
Part of the power of a contract strategy is that it forces Republicans to quit being an opposition party and enables them to become an alternative party. This was the key part of our calculus in developing the original contract. We knew that the Ross Perot voters (the tea party independents of their day) would not turn out for a negative campaign. They were angry at all politicians, and they would have stayed home if Republicans had merely been the anti-Clinton party. This is, in fact, what happened in 1998 when we could not get the leadership in the House and the Senate to develop a reform agenda. Our vote fell off because we were seen as negative and obstructionist.
To attract the Perot voter, we wanted to be relentlessly positive. With then-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour’s financial support, we bought a two-page ad in TV Guide (then the most widely read publication in America).
The contract had no pictures, did not mention Clinton or the Democrats, and was almost boring in its typeface. It was designed to look and feel different. The original is now in the Smithsonian.
Because it was so positive, we reassured the Perot voters that we were different from traditional politicians. They concluded we were worth turning out and voting for.
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