Romney: Mothers On Welfare Need Jobs To Have The ‘Dignity Of Work’

TPM

Mitt Romney and his campaign have been on the offensive for days, attacking Democrats and President Obama for not respecting motherhood as work. Sparked by comments made by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen suggesting Ann Romney might not be the most qualified expert on women’s economic woes because she’s “never worked a day in her life,” the Romney campaign seized on the opening to accuse the Democrats of waging a “war on moms.”

But the attacks don’t gibe with comments Romney made just three months ago on the campaign trail. In January, Romney touted his proposal as governor of Massachusetts to raise the amount of work required of mothers on welfare so that they could “have the dignity of work.”

The comment was uncovered and aired on MSNBC’s “Up w/Chris Hayes,” Sunday morning.

“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney in New Hampshire. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”.......

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As Rosen later explained, her comments were not about attacking the work of raising children but to point out that most mothers don’t have the luxury of choosing between working and being a stay-at-home mom — a point Mitt Romney made in his 1994 Senate campaign as well. Ann Romney shot back that her “career choice was to be a mother” and that her husband “respects women that make those different choices.”

But according to Romney’s own welfare proposals as governor, being a stay at home mother does not qualify as work. In fact, the federal government does not consider it work either.