Thank You Hillary, for Having a Spine

The personal is political.

When I was a teenager, I introduced Marian Wright Edelman at
a conference. She is an Advocate with a capital A, and it was an honor.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that Edelman gave
Hillary her first job out of college and Hillary turned around
and fiddled while Bill signed the welfare "reform" bill that
has singled handedly insured the poverty of an entire
generation of children. Peter Goodman writes in The Times,

Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of Children’s Defense Fund, an activist group that had given Mrs. Clinton her first job, blasted the Clintons as betraying the poor, opening a rift that Mrs. Clinton called “sad and painful.” Mrs. Edelman’s husband, Peter, quit his administration post.

Pete Edelman, Marians husband, resigned as Bill's assistant
secretary of Health and Human services in protest against
Clinton's Welfare reform.

“If there is no national controversy about welfare reform, we paid an awfully high price,” said Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who has known Mrs. Clinton since her college days, and who quit his post as assistant secretary of social services at the Department of Health and Human Services in protest after Mr. Clinton signed the measure.

“They don’t acknowledge the number of people who were hurt,” Mr. Edelman said. “It’s just not in their lens. It was predictably bad public policy.”

This single handedly is one of the most horrible aspects
of his presidential career.

How can a person call themselves progressive when
they stood on the backs of poor children?

I will ask again.

How can a person call themselves progressive when
they stood on the backs of poor children?

In many ways, Mrs. Clinton has sought to moderate her liberal image since leaving the White House. But on welfare, she has faced the opposite problem: accusations from some liberals that she sold out their principles for a politically calculated centrism.

In the interview, conducted last month, Mrs. Clinton said she had followed through on her promise to address what she viewed as shortcomings in the welfare law after being elected to the Senate in 2000. She said she had pressed for legislation that would have increased financing for child care for poor mothers by up to $11 billion, seeking to expand food stamps, and allowing welfare recipients to draw cash aid while attending school.

Those provisions were blocked by the Republican leadership.

The question was, did she want to be an advocate,
or did she want to be president?

Many welfare advocates dispute Mrs. Clinton’s characterization. Since entering the Senate, they say, she has shown a predilection for compromise at the expense of the poor.

When the overhaul bill came up for reauthorization, Sandra Chapin, a former welfare recipient affiliated with a coalition called Welfare Made a Difference, lobbied Congress to allow more women to attend college while they received aid. Mrs. Clinton “wouldn’t have anything to do with it,” Ms. Chapin said.

Ms. Chapin, now program director of the Consumer Federation of California, posted an e-mail message to a discussion board in February accusing Mrs. Clinton of having “had a hand in devaluing motherwork in this country, and no doubt sending thousands of children and their families deeper into poverty.”

Do you know HOW MANY families would be positively
impacted by allowing parents to receive Public Assistance
while they are enrolled in school?

We don't know if we want mothers to go to school or go
to work. The bottom line is that the need support
if they are going to do either.

Have you ever thought about how with public
assistance mommas its, "your lazy, go to work, you
aren't supporting your family". However, with middle class
and affluent mommas its, "stay home, your kid is failing in
school because you work too much outside the home".

How about support for all families?

How about this factoid?
The number of poor single mothers, who are neither
receiving public assistance or are currently working
had surged to 30% by 2005.

In the years that followed, the number of those on welfare rolls plummeted by more than 60 percent. A study last year by the Congressional Budget Office found that from 1991 to 2005, poor families with children saw their inflation-adjusted incomes climb by 35 percent, as employment climbed.

In recent years, however, low-skilled women have struggled. The percentage of poor single mothers neither working nor drawing cash assistance surged from under 20 percent before the welfare overhaul to more than 30 percent in 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service. During the same period, the number of children in poverty rose to 12.8 million from 11.6 million, according to census data.

From 11.6 million to 12.8 million, thank you Hillary, for having a spine.

At least Lady Bird Johnson lobbied for the creation of head start.