Thursday, January 24, 2008

Blogging For Choice III

As follow up on my previous Blogging For Choice articles; I and II here is more evidence that the Supreme Courts decision over abortion left the door open to privatization of health care in Canada, in particular the privatization of abortion services.

That meant a restriction of genuine choice for women who need or want abortions to using Morgentaler Clinics or else leaving their provinces for clinics in other provinces or in the U.S.


Many Canadian women lack access to reproductive health services




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Blogging For Choice II

I got chastised for having assumed that Blogging For Choice was all that was occurring around the upcoming 20th Anniversary of the Morgentaler Decision that saw the Supreme Court abandon all laws aground abortion.

I stand corrected it appears there will be blogging bursts and public events occurring around this. In fact
Antonia Zerbisias kicked it off on her blog last weekend

However one of points which I raised in my post and my comments in response to my commentators remained unanswered. So I will ask it again. Why is it that 20 years later Morgentaler has a great private medical business going, and women still do not have access to publicly funded abortions.


Toronto, Friday, January 25, 7:30pm. Fundraising Reception for National Abortion Federation Canada ’s Patient Assistance Fund. Many women lack the resources to pay for costs associated with abortion care, such as transportation, childcare, and medications. Also, some women cannot access medical coverage and require financial support. Donations to this fund will allow NAF Canada to provide financial assistance when it is urgently needed.
And once this money is raised will it be used to lobby for womens right to free publicly provided abortions? No of course not it will be used to top up Morgentaler's private clinic fees. The Left and the Womens movement need to move beyond supporting Morgentaler and demand fully funded abortions to be provided by public hospitals.

On the other hand the libertarian right need to advocate for choice, after all thats the credo of the right, by defending a woman's right to choose against their social conservative allies and defend Dr. Morgentaler since his clinics provide an example of a privatized alternative to the public system that has worked quite effectively for twenty years.

That is the real debate that would move this beyond the moral pretenses of the religious right which have shaped the debate since the Supreme Court decision twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago the movement for Womens Reproductive rights got side tracked into a single issue campaign around abortion and then that became reduced to the defense of Dr. Morgentaler. An honest assessment of that needs to be done twenty years later by the Feminist movement, the Left and the Libertarians.

A possible reconciliation between these two apparently contradictory positions would be the creation of co-operative Womens Health Clinic. Medical practitioners would be on salary, workers in the centre would be on the co-op board, a combination of Doctors and Nurse Practitioners, as well as specialists Gyn-Ob would work in the clinics as well as Mid Wives. The centre would provide contraceptive and family planning information, natural child birth options as well as a full delivery centre and abortion services. As well a health spa could be part of the services provided, using the European methods of non-osteopathic therapies, as well as having certified acupuncturists, massage therapists and naturopath's available. In other words a holistic approach to womens health and especially reproductive health.Those services could be covered by benefit plans when not covered by Medicare. Extra costs that are not covered by medicare, benefit plans, or third party insurance, could then be covered by annual membership fee.

Finally let us look at the root of the problem of abortion. The failure of contraception and family planning.

Here is an interesting post I came across that points out a significant challenge to popular misconceptions about teen pregnancy.

Teen Pregnancy Does Not Perpetuate Poverty

I just read an interesting article about a study by Frank Furstenberg that shows that teen motherhood does not perpetuate poverty.

According to the 30-year-study, postponing motherhood does not have a significant impact on a person’s chances of escaping poverty. For all intents and purposes, impoverished girls who bear children tend to do just as well economically and educationally as the ones who do not.

In other words, poor teens tend to get pregnant more often, but teenagers who get pregnant have the same odds of educational and financial success as the ones who do not.

Mainly, the economic conditions in which a person grows up determine their odds of ending up poor. Whether or not the person gets pregnant as a teenager has little affect.

Although the findings go against the common perception, I guess it makes sense. A poor girl will likely end up in poverty later in life regardless of whether or not she gets pregnant as a teenager. A wealthy girl’s parents can still ensure her success with their money even when the girl gets pregnant as a teenager.

I still see teen pregnancy as a significant mistake, but we have such a classist society that making mistakes has little statistical effect on who ends up poor and who does not. While we need to help people not make mistakes, we have to find a way to eliminate the classism of our society to ever end poverty.


Jamie Lee Spears is a perfect example of the challenge of teen pregnancy, and of unplanned unwanted pregnancies. But unlike working class and poor teen age girls, she is rich. Of course that does not mean she will make a good or responsible mother, just look at her sister.

However her pop star status makes it seem like its a lesser sin to have pre-marital sex if you are willing to stay pregnant and keep your child. This leads to a social acceptance of teen pregnancy, rather than teen sex per se, that is teen sex with protection to avoid pregnancy. That would never do. She of course has become a poster girl for the right wing anti-abortion hypocrites.

The Anti-Abortion movement opposes all forms of family planning and contraception, they oppose public health and sex eduction as well a relationship education based on humanistic principles. They demand sex education be moral education based on their particular religious view in opposition to ethical humanist sexuality/relationship education.

They push abstinence as an alternative to contraception, in perpetual denial that teens are sexually active. They deny the pleasure principle which challenges their ideology of sex for reproduction only. They hate the sexual revolution that occurred in the sixties with advent of the development of the birth control bill, which allowed for sex for pleasure rather than reproduction. In fact they continually blame the sexual revolution and the pleasure principle it embraced as the cause of all social evils.
In doing so the followers of the patriarchal Abrahamic religions deny the fact that in their holy book the pleasure principle was first espoused.


And here again is where the Left and the Libertarian wings of feminism can align; the need for making informed responsible choices. The right loves choice and of course responsibility, versus rights. Yet when it comes to human sexuality and relationships they deny the very information needed and access to contraception, that would allow for an informed responsible decisions by anyone intending on having sex. Hence their continued attacks on planned parenthood.

Thus they create the conditions for the continued emotional plague where we see teens taking the lives of other teens because of their emotional immaturity in dealing with jealousy, or we see young women giving birth in denial and abandoning their babies. Such is the moral consequence of the anti-abortion advocates of abstinence, which is simply denial of reality. Teens and adults have sex, for pleasure, not for procreation.

Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings

can master their sadistic destructiveness.

Wilhelm Reich, on Sigmund Freud's hope






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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Mr. Dithers II

It's clear that dithering is now an official Liberal leadership trait.

Dion did not respond specifically when asked if Liberals are prepared to defeat the government over Afghanistan, should Harper make extension of the mission a matter of confidence.





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SEE

Liberals Gain Third Party Status



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Manley Whines

On Don Newman's Politics show yesterday Newman interviewed John Manley about his recommendations to the Harprocrites about Afghanistan.Manley complained, predictably, about media coverage of the war. His example was interesting he said a press conference had been set up to show the success of a CIDA program in Kabul, but it happened the same day another Canadian soldier had been killed. He complained that this good news story then got lost while the media covered the soldiers death, his ramp ceremony and his return to Canada.

Now I won't comment on the callousness of this example. Rather I found it interesting that the good news story was Kabul, not Kandahar. We are doing little PRT work in Kandahar, mostly it is support for infrastructure needed for the troops.

Our real aid work is still occurring in the North in Kabul. So why are we in the south. Manley undermines his argument for Harpers War in the South. Instead the NDP is proven right again, we need to withdraw our troops from counter insurgency operations and move them back to the North, to defend the PRT projects that are really what we should be doing. And of course backing the malleable Karzai government in its attempts to come to a peace agreement with the Taliban and Pashtun war lords.


Mullah Naqib shakes hands with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in March, less than two months after the Kandahar elder helped free the main suspect in Glyn Berry’s death. Tom Hanson/CP
Mullah Naqib shakes hands with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in March, less than two months after the Kandahar elder helped free the main suspect in Glyn Berry’s death.


SEE:

Surprise

Don't Bother Writing Us

Rogues Gallery

















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Blogging For Choice

Blog for Choice Day

This is a belated Blogging For Choice article. Yesterday members of the
Progressive Bloggers joined their American counterparts in Blogging For Choice.

While Americans focus on Roe vs Wade in Canada the Supreme Court ruled more broadly in abolishing abortion as a crime. This year is the 20th anniversary of that decision. And it took an American campaign to draw Canadian bloggers attention to this fact. While the media have covered the 2oth Anniversary of this historic decision the Pro Choice movement in Canada, such as it is, remains silent, and politically absent from the ensuing debate.

On the other hand the Anti-Choice advocates have used it to renew calls for the Federal Government to limit abortions using the back door of a private members bill to make it a double crime of murder when a mother and her unborn child are both killed.

Any reference to this latest attack on a womans right to chose abortion was sadly lacking in most of the posts at Progressive Bloggers. Focusing again on Roe vs. Wade rather than the 1988 Canadian decision. At least the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has provided some talking points on "Unborn Victims of Violence Act."


The Pro-Choice movement basically died twenty years ago with the SC decision. Feminists in CARAL the Canadian counter part to NARAL the American Pro Choice lobby, folded up their Abortion Rights tent and moved on to other issues; pornography, violence against women, etc.

And what did Canadian women get with the SC decision, well not access to publicly funded abortion that's for sure. What they got was privatized abortion clinics run by Dr. Morgentaler. In fact Morgentaler has always been an advocate for privatized medicine, he has always claimed his clinics deliver abortion services better than public hospitals. Ironic that. And where provinces or publicly funded hospitals did not provide abortion services, such as those hospitals run by the Catholic Church, Canadian women were still forced to go to the U.S. to get abortions.

Such was the case in Alberta for many years, and still is today. There are no abortions done in Alberta hospitals, instead Alberta Health Care contracts out the operation to Morgentaler's clinics, but does not pay his full fee.

There is an irony for you. Morgentaler has long advocated the neo-con idea of private medical services being better than publicly provided ones, his right wing opponents, as well as his feminist proponents, miss his nuanced fiscal conservatism. The right wing abandons its fiscal conservatism in favour of a political morality driven by the Church. The left wing mutes any criticism of Morgentalers pro privatization pitch because they favour a womans right to choose.

Well heck why not support the right to choose home-schooling, or the right to choose to belong to a union, or well you get the idea. Logical consistency on either side of the debate is seriously lacking.

The failure of the libertarian right in Canada was to allow the social conservatives to take this issue from them. Instead of defending a womans right to choose, and to embrace Morgentaler's private clinic alternative they instead abandoned themselves to the neo-cons and paleo-cons.

The failure of the Left and the Feminist movement was to embrace abortion and Morgentaler as single issues. Once the Supreme Court decision passed, there was no cause any longer. Instead of broadening the Pro Choice movement to include all aspects of womens reproductive rights including the right to sex education, contraception, birthing alternatives such as mid-wifery, etc. Instead as we have seen CARAL devolved into the Abortion Rights Coalition.

Womens Reproductive Rights are far broader than just abortion. It includes also the right to choose birthing options. Provinces that had restrictive access to abortion also in many cases failed to paid for Midwives. Such was the case in Alberta for many years. Linking these two issues together shows that womens health is a public health issue. The right to publicly funded medical services.

Various benefit plans in unionized work places are also affected when it comes to womens reproductive choices. Those that cover Catholic public services and public sector workers will not allow payment for contraceptives or abortions, leaving women to have to pay out of pocket for these essential medical services. Yet unions are silent on this issue afraid to challenge the service providers because of the ensuing controversial debate it will cause in the membership.

We may have come a long way twenty years ago, but in the ensuing twenty years we have not gone anywhere when it comes to providing publicly funded abortions in our hospitals.

In effect what this has meant is that in Canada there are more third month terminations than ever before. And issue that the social conservatives make much hay with. Or attempt to. Not because of the Supreme Court decision but because the left and feminist movement abandoned the fight to demand publicly funded abortions be covered by medicare and preformed in our publicly funded hospitals rather than in Morgentaler's private clinics.

The Libertarian Right in Canada abandoned the fight in the right wing mileux as well, they abandoned a key individual right, a woman's right to choose, in order to align with their neo-con and social conservative allies to gain political power at any cost. As can be seen with the launch of this new non-religious right wing anti-abortion lobby.


The right to choose is broader than just the right to choose an abortion it is the right to choose to have sex or not, to have safe sex, to have access to public humanist sex education, to have access to contraception for men and women, to have birthing choices, to have the right to have reproductive medical services fully paid for by Medicare or by benefit plans, etc. A new movement is needed in Canada to demand these rights a movement of the libertarian Left and Right.



"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it."

- Wilhelm Reich





See:

Feminizing the Proletariat

Whose Family Values?

The Sexual Revolution Continues

Unsafe Abortions Continue

God Is Pro Abortion

Abortion, Adoption, or Abandonment


Procreation To Save The White Race

Abortion Not A Sin

Pro Life?

Grandmother of Second Wave Feminism Dies

Right to Life = Right To Work



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Boycott Canadian Blog Awards

I Am Boycotting the Canadian Blog Awards.


No problem doing that since I am not a finalist.

The "Best Damn Left Wing Blog in Canada" is not a finalist, heck it's not even a category.

Better luck next year guys maybe you will move beyond Conservative and Progressive as categories. Like best Blogging Tory, Best Liblog, Best Dipper, Best Green, Best Marxist Leninist,Best Libertarian, Best Anarchist, Best Socialist, Best Trotskyist, Best Grucho Marxist,etc. might broaden the minimalist political categories that currently exist. In fact the limitations of the CBA political categories remind me of the limitations of Facebook.

And as far as Progressive being a definition of politics, its a generalization. Why indeed if we check out Progressive Bloggers we find that it is actually a front for tabloid blogging.

Yep better luck next year CBA.


















SEE:

2007 Canadian Blog Awards


I Won I Won

Lefty Blog Awards

Vote For Me

Canadian Blog Awards 2005



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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Pam Barrett RIP

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Pam Barrett former leader of the Alberta NDP passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. She will be missed but her fight goes on.

In 1997 I worked with Pam on the election campaign to get the NDP back into the leg after the disasterous election of 1993 saw the party wiped off the map. With a populist and popular leaders like Pam, and in a province driven by the politics of personality, we did changed the face of NDP politics forever.



As the unpaid volunteer Co Chair of the Party's Strategy and Communications committee we made the election about Pam. Our slogan was Pam Barrett and the NDP. Never before had the party done such a thing. Secondly we ran for opposition, all the old gray beards said it couldn't be done, you run for government, but we ran as the 'effective' opposition.




Finally we launched the first cyber campaign in the Province, with web pages, internet use and email campaigns as well as using regular media. It was one of the first cyber campaigns in North America.

With little money we elected not only Pam in Highlands but Raj Pannu in Edmonton Strathcona. Two seats which the NDP have held ever since.

Yes an anarchist ran a Leninist cult of personality campaign for the NDP. And it worked. Worked so well the party adopted it nationally as you can see with Jack Layton. And they also adopted the strategy of running as an effective opposition federally.

She had arisen out of the Anti-war left influenced by the Trotskyist movement as well as the British New Left around Tony Benn and Ralph Miliband.

Unknown to many but her closest confidantes, Pam was also a pagan and we celebrated many a solstice and other special days in her Riverdale backyard.

May the Goddess embrace her daughter in the wings of her darkness.

You know how well you have done in life when your enemies praise you on your passing.

"I’ll miss her": Ralph Klein


To her admirers, Pam Barrett was feisty, fearless and passionate. To a legion of people she helped, from the underprivileged in her Edmonton Highlands riding to the unrepresented Alberta women who followed provincial politics, she was a hero.

Barrett, the former leader of the Alberta New Democrats, passed away late Monday night at age 54 from cancer at the Cross Cancer Institute. Her legacy is admirable, said longtime friend and colleague Ray Martin.


Cancer claims New Democrat dynamo Pam Barrett
Canada.com, Canada - 4 hours ago
EDMONTON - Pam Barrett, a three-term New Democrat member of the Alberta legislature who also served as party leader, died late Monday at age 54, ...

NDP stalwart in Alberta, Pam Barrett, dies of cancer at age 54
The Canadian Press

NDP Leader Brian Mason remembers Pam Barrett

Here is the text of NDP Leader Brian Mason's statement on the passing of Pam Barrett:

I was saddened today to hear about the passing of Pam Barrett, former leader of Alberta's NDP.

Pam will be remembered most for her fighting spirit. She was always standing up on behalf of the little person in Alberta, the person who was passed by.

She was a voice for the voiceless.

Albertans who were there will never forget her defense of the legal rights of individuals who had been involuntarily sterilized by the government; she forced the government to back down and it was her finest hour.

Her commitment to the NDP was unquestioned. She spent a large portion of her career serving our party as staff, and MLA, and as leader. Her feisty performance in the legislature is an inspiration to us to this day.

Pam's public service to our province made Alberta a better, more humane place. We are forever in her debt.



Statement from NDP Leader Jack Layton on death of Pam Barrett
Tue 22 Jan 2008 |

I was deeply saddened to learn of Pam Barrett’s death today. On behalf of all New Democrats, I would like to extend my most heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.

Albertans – and all Canadians – will remember Pam as a hard-working, impassioned and witty NDP Leader and MLA. She punched above her weight in the legislature and effected important changes for everyday Albertans – even when the odds were stacked against her. In everything that she did, Pam was driven to make life better for the less fortunate.

Pam will be missed, but she has left her stamp on Alberta and the changes that she made will continue to be felt for years to come.


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Surprise

Not.

Manley's report expected to recommend extending Afghan mission



SEE

Rogues Gallery




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Same Old Conservatives

They may have dropped the Progressive from their name but the Harper Conservative Government suddenly looks just like the old Brian Mulroney Conservative party. Coincidence? I think not.

Conservatives ensuring federal cash spent in Quebec, big time

Ministers Prentice and Fortier announced Boeing money being spread to Quebec today: Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) says it has awarded contracts worth more than $420 million to companies in Quebec, linked to the Canadian government's 2007 order for four C-17 Globemaster 3 aircraft.The first two long-distance transport planes are already in service with Canadian Forces, having been used to support the military in Afghanistan.As part of the original order, Boeing agreed to match the price of the four aircraft with dollar-for-dollar investments in Canada through a program co-ordinated by Industry Canada....Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin also announced Monday it is providing Quebec companies with contracts worth a total of $240 million.Federal Public Works Minister Michael Fortier and Industry Minister Jim Prentice made the announcement at a news conference in nearby Laval.

Junior MacKay: "we're going to be getting our share"

The bounty spreads as we get word of a Tuesday announcement of more federal spending, following up on Monday's Quebec spending with respect to those military contracts for new transport aircraft. The Conservatives look to shore up Nova Scotia with some good old fashioned sprinkling of federal funds: Atlantic Canadian aerospace companies will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in defence contracts as the result of a move to replace the military's Hercules transport aircraft, two federal cabinet ministers are expected to announce Tuesday.The announcement of funding to aerospace companies in Nova Scotia will be made by Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Industry Minister Jim Prentice.

And remember this.....

Reports of Quebec getting Boeing spinoffs premature: Toews

Last Updated: Thursday, January 25, 2007


Treasury Board president Vic Toews denied reports that Ottawa may give Quebec a bigger share of a $3.5-billion federal contract for military aircraft — a bigger share that Manitoba worries might come at its own industry's expense.

The federal government is discussing a deal with Boeing Corp. to buy four new C-17 cargo planes.

While the Boeing airplanes would be built in the U.S., the federal deal hinges on Boeing pledging to spend an amount equal to the purchase price on projects in Canada.

About 20 per cent of the benefits could go to Western Canada. But earlier this week, federal Public Works Minister Michel Fortier said in published reports that he would not sign the contracts unless Quebec receives the biggest share.

Toews, the Conservative MP for Provencher in Manitoba, said Thursday that the reports are premature and "are completely without foundation.

The Conservatives remain the party of the Big Lie and Big Liars.


SEE

Stephen Mulroney

Stephen Mulroney Brian Harper

Canada's Real Prime Minister

Not Your Daddies Conservative Party, well...

Mulroney's Ghost





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Bill Clinton A Reagan Democrat

Bill Clinton went all ballistic, again, over Barack Obama's comments that Ronald Regan was a 'transformational' president and that the Republicans were the party of 'ideas' through out the eighties and nineties. He of course became President in the nineties. And his was leadership was created by Reagan Democrats in the Democratic Leadership Council, who thought the be best way to beat the Republican Revolution of Newt Gingrich was to join it. Clinton is as hypocritical on this as he is on his purported opposition to the War in Iraq.

CNN.com - Clinton defends successor's push for war - Jun 19, 2004

Bill Clinton: I opposed war from start - Decision '08- msnbc.com

It was Clinton who fought for and signed into law one of key planks of the Reagan Neo Con Revolution; Welfare Reform which consisted of Work For Welfare.

This so called first Black President of the US signed into law this regressive bill aimed specifically at African American Women. He was not only two faced, speaking as a Democrat and ruling as a Republican, he did it in Al Jolson Black face. A longstanding Southern Democrat as well as Vaudville tradition.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p100/lastofthebenders/FreeRep10-Family/blackface.gif

That he should attack Barack Obama with such hypocritical indignation shows that he knows that this is exactly what Obama has pointed out about his six years in office. It was Democratic Black Face covering Republican White Majority Neo Conservative agenda.

http://www.rightblueeye.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/clinton_blackface.png

Welfare Reform: The Personal Responsibility Act

One of the key ingredients in the initial Contract With America has led to one of the most contentious debates in Washington: reforming the welfare state. The Personal Responsibility Act in the Contract included prohibiting welfare going to mothers under the age of 18, halting the increase of benefits for mothers each time they had additional illegitimate children, and cutting welfare spending. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared a so-called War on Poverty; but 30 years later, after spending an estimated $5.4 trillion on welfare programs, it seems that poverty is winning the war. Thirty years of central government welfare programs seem only to have worsened the situation. The key problem, as my colleague at The Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, has pointed out, is that "the welfare programs present a 'moral hazard' -- a strong tendency to increase the behaviors which are rewarded by welfare benefits." Specifically, "when welfare benefits are tied, directly or indirectly, to such behaviors as low work effort, divorce, and illegitimacy, welfare strongly promotes an increase in those behaviors." This only creates an ever-escalating cycle of more spending.

The Personal Responsibility Act of the Contract sought to fundamentally revamp the role of the state in welfare policy by developing policies to reduce teenage pregnancies and illegitimate births by prohibiting aid to mothers under 18 who give birth out of wedlock and requiring them to name the fathers of their children, who would be held accountable for their actions. Such women would be required to live at home to receive any aid and would not get housing subsidies to set up their own apartments. The Act also required that aid be cut off if recipients did not work.

The federal government provides 72 percent ($234.3 billion) of all welfare benefits, compared to 28 percent ($90 billion) by the states. This has led the Congress to set certain general standards and criteria that recipients of aid must meet to receive benefits. But beyond some general restrictions, the key reform of welfare consists of attempting to decentralize the program to the 50 states and thereby stimulate numerous creative approaches to dealing with social problems.

This reflected the general conservative philosophical view in the Contract. As Speaker Gingrich writes in his book To Renew America: "We must replace our centralized, micro-managed, Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continent-wide country... 'Closer is better' would be the rule of thumb for our decision making; less power in Washington and more back home, our consistent theme."


New York Times Op-Ed Contributor

How We Ended Welfare, Together


Published: August 22, 2006

Most Democrats and Republicans wanted to pass welfare legislation shifting the emphasis from dependence to empowerment. Because I had already given 45 states waivers to institute their own reform plans, we had a good idea of what would work. Still, there were philosophical gaps to bridge. The Republicans wanted to require able-bodied people to work, but were opposed to continuing the federal guarantees of food and medical care to their children and to spending enough on education, training, transportation and child care to enable people to go to work in lower-wage jobs without hurting their children.

On Aug. 22, 1996, after vetoing two earlier versions, I signed welfare reform into law. At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous. Three members of my administration ultimately resigned in protest. Thankfully, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill because they thought we shouldn't be satisfied with a system that had led to intergenerational dependency.


Welfare before welfare reform

The major welfare programs of the Great Depression in the United States for able-bodied workers involved the WPA and the CCC. They were abolished when full employment returned during World War II. The states, however, continued to provide welfare for people who were unable to work; disability insurance was provided by the federal Social Security System. After the War on Poverty in the 1960s, welfare rolls grew rapidly, angering conservatives. [Katz 1986] Before 1996, welfare payments were distributed through a program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In the 1980s, the program drew heavy criticism. There were numerous stories of "welfare queens", women who cheated the welfare system, receiving multiple checks each month and growing wealthy while not working. Many critics claimed that welfare bred a poor work ethic and a self-perpetuation "culture of poverty" in which ambitions focused on staying on welfare and avoiding productive work. [Katz 1986]

The AFDC system was under constant attack in the 1980s; these continued in the 1990s, with Presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowing to "end welfare as we know it." Clinton, once elected, worked with a Democratic congress and met with considerable success in moving people from welfare to work through state waiver programs. These programs allowed states to experiment with various welfare reform measures. The system became a common target of Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders, though changes had already been set in motion by Clinton and the Democrats. Toughening the criteria for receiving welfare was the third point (out of ten) in the Republicans' Contract with America. The tide of public opinion in favor of some change to the welfare system was considerable. The stage was already set by 1996. The welfare reform movement reached its apex on August 22, 1996, when President Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, officially titled the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The bill was hammered out in a compromise with the Republican-controlled Congress, and many Democrats were critical of Clinton's decision to sign the bill, saying it was much the same as the two previous welfare reform bills he had vetoed. In fact, it emerged as one of the most controversial issues for Clinton within his own party.[Haskins 2006]

One of the bill's provisions was a time limit. Under the law, no person could receive welfare payments for more than five years, consecutive or nonconsecutive. Another controversial change was transferring welfare to a block grant system, i.e. one in which the federal government gives states "blocks" of money, which the states then distribute under their own legislation and criteria. Some states simply kept the federal rules, but others used the money for non-welfare programs, such as subsidized childcare (to allow parents to work) or subsidized public transportation (to allow people to travel to work without owning cars).[Haskins 2006; Blank 2002].


Clinton Signs Welfare Reform Bill, Angers Liberals

Clinton

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Aug. 22) -- President Bill Clinton today signed a sweeping welfare reform bill that ends the open-ended guarantee of federal aid and shifts much of the responsibility for public assistance to the states. (288K WAV sound)

The measure, hammered out in Congress over the past several months, imposes a five-year limit on benefits, requires able-bodied recipients to go to work after two years, and gives states incentives to create jobs for people on welfare.

Clinton said it's far from perfect legislation, but will go a long way toward overcoming "the flaws of the welfare system for the people who are trapped in it."

The president told a White House gathering the legislation also should end the scapegoating and politicking that has surrounded the welfare debate for decades.

"When I sign it, we all have to start again," Clinton said. "And this becomes everybody's responsibility. After I sign my name to this bill, welfare will no longer be a political issue.

"The two parties cannot attack each other over it. Politicians cannot attack poor people over it. There are no encrusted habits, systems and failures that can be laid at the foot of someone else.

"This is not the end of welfare reform, this is the beginning, and we have to all assume responsibility," Clinton added.

In a talk that seemed aimed at liberals who have accused him of betraying poor children, the president said he and Congress can correct what's wrong with this bill, but they could not afford to miss the chance to fix a system that does not reinforce the values of work and family.

Clinton

He quoted Robert F. Kennedy, who said, "Work is the meaning of what this country is all about. We need it as individuals. We need to sense it in our fellow citizens, and we need it as a society and as a people."

Said Clinton: "Today, we are taking an historic chance to make welfare what it was meant to be, a second chance, not a way of life."

"If it doesn't work now, it's everybody's fault: mine, yours and everybody else," Clinton said. "There is no longer a system in the way."

The president vetoed two earlier bills which he said contained too little protection for poor children, but said this one contains $14 billion for child care -- $4 billion more than the present law.

"I signed this bill because this is an historic chance, where Republicans and Democrats got together and said we're going to take this historic chance to try to recreate the nation's social bargain with the poor," he said. "We can change what is wrong. We should not have passed this historic opportunity to do what is right."

Clinton uged businesses, non-profit agencies and individuals -- anyone who's ever made a disparaging comment about welfare recipients, he said -- to consider what they can do to help someone move from the welfare rolls to employment rolls.

gathering

Clinton was introduced by Lillie Harden, one of those "success stories" that politicians love to surround themselves with.

A resident of Little Rock, she first meet Clinton in 1984 when he was governor. After getting benefits for two years, she enrolled in an experimental program called "the Arkansas Work Program." In 1986, at the National Governors Convention, Clinton held her up as an example of how welfare reform can work. Today she works in the deli department of a supermarket and supports her four children.

Asked about opposition to the bill, even by groups normally allied with the president, such as the National Organization for Women, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said: "We acknowledge there are strong feelings against this bill amongst those who are traditionally supportive of the president and president's party. But the president is determined to make welfare reform work; he promised the American people that we would reform welfare as we know when he ran in 1992."

This was the week's third bill signing, part of the White House's effort to generate momentum going into the Democratic convention, which starts Monday in Chicago. Earlier, Clinton signed legislation boosting the minimum wage and guaranteeing the portability of health insurance, when workers change or lose jobs.

Welfare's Changing Face

By Dan Froomkin
Washingtonpost.com Staff
Updated July 23, 1998

Welfare as we knew it no longer exists.

The 61-year American tradition of guaranteeing cash assistance to the poor came to an end with the signing of legislation in August 1996.

Under the old system, founded during the Great Depression, the federal government provided fairly uniform benefits to the nation's poor – mostly mothers and children – without regard to the details of their personal circumstances, and with no time limit.

But over time, the system became increasingly unpopular. Political opinion turned against the idea of anyone getting rewarded for being idle. Social critics said welfare was responsible for a permanent underclass of people living off government checks because the incentives to go to work were so weak.

Now, a federal system that was once fairly consistent has been turned over to the states, where programs are diverging widely. And it is far from clear whether the poor will be better or worse off


  • The New System

    The welfare "reform" of the Clinton era consists of two major elements: a revolutionary change in the basic goals set by the federal government; and a dramatic "devolution" of responsibility – turning what used to be a federal, centralized system over to the states.

    Reflecting the new federal mission, welfare rules now:

    The devolution to the states is in some ways even more dramatic. Traditionally, the federal government set eligibility guidelines on a national basis, then parceled out money to the states to fund specific programs at certain levels. But now, the federal money allocated for public assistance is sent to the states in block grants. The federal role is limited to setting goals, financial penalties and rewards.

    States and even counties are designing their own programs for the poor, picking and choosing from approaches they hope will get results.

    Many of the new approaches require subjective judgements. A human being has to decide when individual recipients are, say, ready for work and should be cut off from assistance. By and large, those responsibilities are falling to welfare caseworkers – who in the past did little more than hand over checks.

    As a result, assistance to the poor, which used to be pretty recognizable anywhere you went in the United States, now differs dramatically from state to state, from county to county, and even from caseworker to caseworker.

    _
    Some Examples

    Some states and counties are adopting tactics that are much more assertive than the federal guidelines suggest.

    Wisconsin is widely considered on the cutting edge. The state is pursuing an aggressive course that combines strict work requirements with an unrivaled support system. For instance, welfare mothers considered able to work will soon lose their checks, regardless of whether they have a job. But at the same time, community service jobs are being enormously expanded, as is spending on child care.

    In New York City, some welfare recipients are working off their monthly checks by sweeping streets, cleaning parks and doing other municipal chores.

    Twenty-five states are instituting "diversion" programs, one-time payments meant to keep families from ever coming onto the welfare rolls. In some states, including Virginia, families who accept a lump sum for staying off the rolls are barred from receiving welfare for a certain period of time.

    Numerous states are requiring individualized "personal responsibility" contracts, spelling out when adults must go to work and the length and type of training they will receive.

    _
    The Concerns

    The old system was often criticized for granting benefits to people who didn't deserve them – and should instead have been working. But the new system creates the distinct possibility that people who do deserve assistance will be denied it. And because most public assistance goes to families, many of the victims would inevitably be children.

    Standardization, for all its drawbacks, also ensured a certain kind of blind fairness. In the new system, there is so much discretion involved that civil-rights activists wonder whether minorities and people with drug problems will be dealt with fairly, and whether people with legitimate reasons for not being able to work will nevertheless be cut off from assistance.

    All the variation in public assistance could lead to migrations of welfare recipients to places where benefits are more generous.

    And some worry that the result could be a "race to the bottom" as local governments reduce benefits in an attempt to avoid attracting more poor people – or even drive them out entirely.

    _
    The Politics

    Politically, welfare reform is perhaps the most conspicuous example of how President Clinton adopted – some say co-opted – parts of the Republican agenda. Historically, Democrats had defended the old welfare system against GOP attacks.

    Clinton defined himself as a centrist Democrat in his 1992 campaign in part by promising to "end welfare as we know it." After the Republican takeover of Congress, he fended off certain GOP welfare provisions but ultimately signed a bill that liberal members of Congress considered much too cruel to the poor.

    In another notable reversal, it is generally liberals who champion social engineering – and conservatives who scoff at the idea that government should try to change individual behavior. Now it is conservatives who most strongly support certain welfare rules, including the family cap and a requirement that most teenage parents live with their own parents in order to receive benefits.

    When Clinton signed the welfare legislation, critics from the left berated him in particular for the provision that stripped disability and health benefits from legal immigrants. Clinton vowed to "change what is wrong" about the bill and, defying the skeptics, ultimately got Congress to restore those benefits during the balanced-budget negotiations in July 1997.

    _
    Where It Stands

    Supporters of the recent changes in welfare maintain that they will be good for the poor, bringing many of them out of subsidized poverty and into the world of work. Clinton has stumped hard for programs that would help welfare recipients get jobs, training, child care and medical care. He has also encouraged both the private and public sectors to go out of their way to offer jobs to welfare recipients.

    But the evidence suggests that getting the vast majority of welfare recipients into jobs will be difficult. While two thirds of welfare recipients are either on assistance only for a short time, or on-and-off, the remaining third have proven impervious to prior attempts to find them lasting work. For some, the problems are concrete and potentially addressable: lack of child care or transportation. For others, notably those who have never held a job, the problems are harder to tackle: poor health or lack of skills, desire or confidence.

    Will the new welfare system help or punish the poor? Even the results so far are in dispute. On the one hand, public assistance rolls continue to decline sharply – 12 percent in the year after the reform legislation was passed. That decline prompted Clinton to declare that "We now know that welfare reform works."

    But critics attribute much of the drop to a robust economy. They worry about what will happen during the next recession, when jobs become scarce and local governments are looking for ways to cut their budgets.

    And they wonder whether some of the decline in the rolls consists of a new underclass, this one composed of people so disenfranchised and destitute that the government no longer even knows they exist.

    © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company


  • Bill Clinton on Welfare & Poverty

    President of the U.S., 1993-2001; Former Democratic Governor (AR)


    Biblically-inspired social justice, especially serving poor

    Clinton holds to an evangelical theology, affirms the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, and "believes the Bible to be an infallible message from God." Clinton's commitment then and today is to biblically inspired social justice. "He is especially committed to living out the 2,000 verses of Scripture which call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor," says a pastor. "Both in the presidency and since leaving the presidency, the verses concerning serving the poor have guided his life."
    Source: God and Hillary Clinton, by Paul Kengor, p.173 Jul 18, 2007

    Reform attacked by Christian left; but genuine middle ground

    The historic 1995 welfare reform initiative between Bill Clinton and the new Republican Congress sought to decentralize the way that welfare was delivered. To this day, this remains the most genuine overture by Bill or Hillary toward a truly middle groun initiative.

    Marian Wright Edelman wrote to Bill: "Do you think the Old Testament prophets Isiah, Micah, & Amos--or Jesus Christ--would support such policies?" It was a display of moral arrogance by Edelman. Sure, Jesus wanted Christians to help the poor, as Christian Republicans and Democrats knew, but nowhere in the Gospel did the Messiah weigh in on whether he preferred centralizing or decentralizing Medicaid.

    Bill Clinton signed the bill. In response, Edelman's husband, Peter, resigned his post in the Department of Health and Human Services saying this was "the worst thing Bill Clinton had done." Contrary to Edelman's predictions, welfare-reform proved an enormous success, maybe the greatest domestic achievement of Clinton's presidency.

    Source: God and Hillary Clinton, by Paul Kengor, p.141-142 Jul 18, 2007

    Help Low-income Fathers Support their Children

    The Administration’s budget proposes $255 million for the first year of a new “Fathers Work/Families Win” initiative to promote responsible fatherhood and support working families, critical next steps in reforming welfare and reducing child poverty. These new competitive grants will be awarded to business-led local and state workforce investment boards who work in partnership with community and faith-based organizations, and agencies administering child support, TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid, thereby connecting low-income fathers and working families to the life-long learning and employment services created under the Workforce Investment Act and delivered through one-stop career centers.

    $125 million for new “Fathers Work” grants will help approximately 40,000 low-income non-custodial parents (mainly fathers) work, pay child support, and reconnect with their children.

    Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Sep 6, 2000

    End welfare as we know it

    On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, fulfilling his longtime commitment to ‘end welfare as we know it.’ As the President said upon signing, “... this legislation provides an historic opportunity to end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and family.”

    The law contains strong work requirements, performance bonuses to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs and reducing illegitimacy, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work -- including increased funding for child care. In May 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance on how states and local governments can use welfare block grant funds to help families move from welfare to work.

    Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Sep 6, 2000

    Address Homelessness via federal, state, & county govt

    President Clinton and Vice President Gore have been committed to helping homeless Americans become more self-sufficient. HUD alone has invested nearly $5 billion in programs to help homeless people since 1993 -- more than three times the investment of the previous Administration. The Continuum of Care approach has helped more than 300,000 homeless people get housing and jobs to become self-sufficient. The Continuum of Care made clear that homelessness was more than simply a housing problem, and focused attention on long-term solutions which included housing as well as job training, drug treatment, mental health services, and domestic violence counseling. The Administration is also proposing to expand access to mainstream health, social services, and employment programs for which the homeless may be eligible through a new $10 million program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, States, and large counties.
    Source: HUD Statement before House Veteran’s Affairs Subcommittee Jun 24, 1999

    Welfare-to-work, instead of welfare as a way of life

    For 15 years, going back to my service as governor of Arkansas, I have worked to reform welfare, to make it a second chance and not a way of life. As a result, Arkansas became a national leader in reforming a wide range of family and welfare programs. I helped write the 1988 federal welfare reform bill.

    [As president], we cut welfare red-tape and approved welfare-to-work programs for 40 states. And it has worked. There are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare today than there were when I took office. Food stamp rolls are down by more than 2 million.

      In 1991, I said we needed to end welfare as we know it. Now, with the passage of new welfare reform legislation, we have an opportunity to establish a new system based on the following principles:
    1. It should be about moving people from welfare to work.
    2. It should impose time limits of welfare benefits.
    3. It should give people the child care and health care assistance they need to move from welfare to work without hurting their children.
    Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p. 66-68 Jan 1, 1996

    Welfare reform includes states, communities, & businesses

    [My proposed welfare reform law] gives states and communities the chance to move people from dependence to independence and greater dignity. But the real work is still to be done. States and communities have to make sure that jobs and child care are there. They can use money that used to go to welfare checks to pay for community service jobs or to give employers wage supplements for several months to encourage them to hire welfare recipients. They should also provide education and training when appropriate and must take care of those who, through no fault of their own, cannot find or do work. These are important new responsibilities not just for welfare recipients, but for states, communities, and businesses. But is welfare reform is to work, all must shoulder their responsibilities.

    This reform is just a beginning. We must implement this legislation in a way that truly moves people from welfare to work, and that is good for children. We will be refining this reform for some time to come.

    Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p. 69-70 Jan 1, 1996





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