This is the guy who claims he wants to talk substance. Then he joined with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and started taking the words the President said in a speech out of context to claim that the President said small business owners did not build their own businesses. What he meant, of course, is that no matter how successful you are, you do depend in part on externalities without which your accomplishments would not be possible.
Romney was demonizing the President in a speech, then at some point commented himself that you need the externalities to be able to thrive. If the words "I was for it before I was against it" apply to anyone is Mitt Romney.
Before he vowed to Repeal and Replace Obamacare he was the architect of Obamacare. Before he promised to close down Planned Parenthood, he and his wife were members of Planned Parenthood. Now he's at it again, claiming the President wants everyone on welfare. Yet by his measure, he too once wanted everyone on welfare.
"Republican anger over President Obama’s directive to grant states flexibility on implementing welfare reform has hit the campaign trail, with Mitt Romney this week using it as a weapon to bludgeon the president. The White House is offering rankled Republicans a response: Get over it — your own party’s leaders, including Romney himself, asked for those waivers."
"In response, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote a letter to Republicans (PDF) reminding them of their party’s own prior support for state leniency in implementing welfare reform. She argued that in 2005, Republican governors wanted even more flexibility than Obama is now willing to grant."
“For years, Republicans and Democratic Governors have requested more flexibility in implementing welfare reform so they can meet their states’ specific needs,” she wrote to Camp and Hatch. “In 2005, 29 Republican governors requested ‘[i]ncreased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit’ so they might more ‘effectively serve low-income’ Americans. Certain elements of the proposal endorsed by the 2005 Republican governors were very far-reaching and would not be approved under the Department’s proposed waivers.”
"Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, was a signatory to that letter. It was also signed by prominent Republican governors and recent presidential candidates such as Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Mark Sanford, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman."
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/kathleen-sebelius-letter-welfare-reform-mitt-romney-republicans.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
So as usual, Mr. Romney is running less against the President than himself: I was for it before I was against it.
Meanwhile the President's move to give states more flexibility in implementing "workfare" requirements is a welcome respite for many poor Americans. To tell the truth, though I remain and always will be a Clitnon Democrat, his "welfare reform" was my least favorite thing he did. While I do believe that he intended to improve welfare by reforming it, in truth he did what the Republicans wanted and repealed it.
Nor has this been a success story for those on the rolls of TANF, partiuclarly since this recession hit:
"Perhaps no law in the past generation has drawn more praise than the drive to “end welfare as we know it,” which joined the late-’90s economic boom to send caseloads plunging, employment rates rising and officials of both parties hailing the virtues of tough love. "
"But the distress of the last four years has added a cautionary postscript: much as overlooked critics of the restrictions once warned, a program that built its reputation when times were good offered little help when jobs disappeared. Despite the worst economy in decades, the cash welfare rolls have barely budged."
"Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession — in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps."
"The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow."
"Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.
"Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”
"To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”
"Critics of the stringent system say stories like these vindicate warnings they made in 1996 when President Bill Clinton fulfilled his pledge to “end welfare as we know it”: the revamped law encourages states to withhold aid, especially when the economy turns bad."
"The old program, , dates from the New Deal; it gave states unlimited matching funds and offered poor families extensive rights, with few requirements and no time limits. The new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, created time limits and work rules, capped federal spending and allowed states to turn poor families away."
“My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,” said Peter B. Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who resigned from the Clinton administration to protest the law. “It’s been even worse than I thought it would be.”
When of the many times Romney has put his foot in his mouth was when he said that he doesn't care about the very rich and the very poor-if the poor need it he said he would repair the safety net. Yet here is the President making a move on repairing it and Romney is fighting it even though he once was for it. Turns out he cares even less about the poor than we realized.
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