Restoring Welfare Reform

Kiki Bradley / March 05, 2009

Congressmen Tom Price (R-GA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) should be commended for introducing a bill this week that will eliminate a little noted provision passed in the stimulus bill which severely undermines the success of the historic 1996 welfare reform law.

H.R. 1277, the Welfare Reform Restoration Act, repeals Section 2101 of the stimulus bill which creates a new $5 billion program that encourages and rewards states for increasing the size of their caseloads. The stimulus bill reverts welfare back to the broken system it once was that trapped a growing number of families into a lifetime of dependency on government assistance. Welfare reform was heavily bipartisan and many of the democrats and republicans who voted for it originally in 1996 are still in Congress today. (more…)