Mitt Romney’s campaign launched a full-on attack on Tuesday accusing President Obama of gutting welfare reform. In a new ad, policy memo, and press release,
Romney claims that the administration’s decision to offer waivers to
states that develop innovative ways to meet the law’s work requirements
is actually an attempt to “remove work participation rate requirements
all together.”
“Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job,” the ad’s narrator says. “They just send you your welfare check.”
The ad is blatantly false
— the administration’s plan specifically maintains the work
requirement, but allows states to experiment with other methods of
transitioning recipients from welfare to work. This is a policy that the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says will make Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families a more effective program.
But the ad is also disingenuous, as it fails to mention that as
governor of Massachusetts, Romney explicitly supported the same waiver
program he is now criticizing. Romney was one of 29 Republican governors
to sign a 2005 letter from the Republican Governor’s Association to
congressional leadership touting the benefits a waiver program would bring their states:
The Senate bill provides states with with the flexibility to manage their TANF programs and effectively serve their low-income populations. Increased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work.
As ThinkProgress has noted, Republican governors in both Utah and Nevada
still support the waiver program. Both, incidentally, have endorsed
Romney. And while Romney touts TANF’s success in a release accompanying
the ad — welfare “reduced
the number of people receiving monthly cash benefits from 12.2 million
to 4.2 million,” it says — the program’s “success” hasn’t been because
its recipients are finding jobs. In fact, TANF has failed to reach the people who need it most, especially compared to the programs that came before it.
As the directive from the Department of Health and Human Services
states, the waiver program is aimed at helping more recipients
transition to work. “HHS is encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways
to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully
prepare for, find, and retain employment,” the directive says. “The
Secretary is only interested in approving waivers if the state can
explain in a compelling fashion why the proposed approach may be a more
efficient or effective means to promote employment entry,
retention, advancement, or access to jobs that offer opportunities for
earnings and advancement that will allow participants to avoid
dependence on government benefits.”
And states will still be subject to federal evaluation and basic work
requirements that “focus on measurable outcomes” and furthering TANF’s
purpose. Failing to do so, HHS states, could result in “termination of
the waiver project.”
Update
The Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney notes:
The proposal Romney supported may have provided for even broader welfare waivers than HHS is currently offering. While the health department today is willing to let states tinker with things like the definition of work activities and the calculation of participation rates, the 2005 bill would have waived “any requirement applicable to the program” — not just work requirements, but maybe even time limits for cash assistance, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment