studies i plowed through were marginal, at best. there was a large consensus spectrum that the welfareuo in quelve -- was unsustainable and needed to be changed. we disagreed over how to change it but not many people defending the status quo. in ourere die-hard folks party who said a little more money for education and jobs to, we'll get work. we never thought that would congealingthere was consensus in the country based on the evidence and the things doing.ernors were these were heroes of ours. we watched the reforms happening wisconsin and california and welfare-to-work moves enabled by and were impressed and fed the view we should change second point goes to values and this was very important to bill clinton's renovation of the democratic party's philosophy and that was not the old system seemed to have positive incentives for

familyor strong formation. it seemed to, as kenny gray, you who is in the management movement, close to jack kemp, said the system rewards you when but never gives you positive incentives when you succeed. that was bill clinton's view, needed a system that created the right incentives for the values that are productive work and family and personal and always striving sufficiency andue thed it on the critique of entitlement mentality. he talked about two years and out. the idea that welfare was in danger of becoming a way of life and needed to be something that was transitional and really a support for people to become independent so work first was the mantra. and i want to say one other thing. remember, the first thing he did to sign the bill in 1996. the very first thing he did to

predicate for a successful social policy was theon, really, dramatic expansion of the earned income tax credit in 1993, $22 expansion and the reason that was important because he said, we said, it's immoral to that low income people work if they're going to take jobs that don't pay them enough them out of poverty so we said you have to make work pay first and then you can talk and ending thets entitlement. 1992 and elected in points a working group on byfare reform co-chaired david elmwood and mary joe bane and bruce. wendell, you staffed that. wonder back on your thinking on the process of that, a large not making ady, decision making body. did you feel like maybe -- that useful exercise or did you

worry the white house had made going?mind where it was >> i think it was a very useful exercise. i did learn a lot of things. onad run a similar process the balanced get easier toit was much get 30 people to agree on things 30 people ino get the administration. now, theoretically on the hill, bosses orthere's 535 if you just look at the democratic side, you know, you would think there would be more disparity. but, you know, in the administration you're basically guy, theor one president. and yes, the vice president is elected but so you would think there would be easier agreement but you know you had the treasury department, everybody thought they had a action and so it was very hard to get agreement. say looking back on it, i think we did some very good

things. enforcementpport provisions that were hammered out by the clinton were basically adopted by clay shaw and ron haskins and the republicans. we also had many different example, ones, for of the reasons welfare rolls were exploding was because out wedlock births and teen pregnancy rates had been climbing. you turnion was how do teen pregnancy rates around? i'm not so sure the welfare bill per se but every year since 1996, save one, teen rates have gone down and as a consequence, the thing welfare rolls has gone down as a result. lotink we also worried a about, you know, what tommy thompson said, about work support. how much money there should be and i'll agree with bruce in the sense that the bill, as finally

had $54y congress, billion of savings associated with it. 44% of those were in the legalant area, immigrants, i'm talking about taking benefits away from legal 43% of the cuts were in the food stamp area. it really wasn't what we're today, the time limits and afdc. and it was those things that the analysis that said a lot more kids would be put in poverty, et cetera. but what i wanted to come back we did, think the work did lay the foundation from some very good things and the other thing i'll say about this welfare reform debate, and it's and that iss today, the children born out of wedlock live with the female and we give the female

the money to take care of the children so we expect the female equation to be the parents, the caretakers, as well winners.ead and what about the male side? children don't come into the automatically. there's a male side to this equation. is, and yoution know, we have problems with ratesmale unemployment today. and the question still remains, likee worked on things paternity establishment. usually that male is very proud hospital.aby's in the and we got paternity establishment -- this was based been done athad the local level. that was the time you find out establishmenty because if the mother goes on welfare, at 16 months, 24 then you got to track down the guy, you got to that.ish an order, all of and if you can get paternity established, you're halfway home. those were some of the details

we worked on. to follow up have on one thing with you because you mentioned that the two clintonhat president spoke harshly about when he signed the immigration provision food stamp cuts, remind me, i don't think i heard it correctly. youthat the reason that decided to resign, is that he signed a bill with those in it? or was it the giving up the entitlements? >> no, i think democrats -- it wasn't the entitlement nature and it wasn't about conditional work. democrats were for work, too, despite what some republicans would tell you. was, to my simple way of thinking, if cvo said you $55 billion, how do you think you're going to be orroving child wellbeing child welfare? and it really was -- i did not that -- and bill clinton proved me wrong -- that the very the bill, then in worst one, was the fact that we

benefits, to take s.s.i. benefits, fairly generous fromlfare standards, away legal immigrants who were age 70 who had no prospect of work and who had been in the country many years. $12 billion a savings. that997 act changed all of so the welfare bill as we know it never got -- took place. and, you know, i came from the dan rostenkowski point of view, line in the sand and if you cross that line, you don't sign. helpful because president clinton in his statement said we'll come back get those things fixed. theext question, bruce, is clinton administration succeeded in passing welfare reform while it failed on healthcare reform, led by the first lady

at the time, mrs. clinton. seems your approach worked better. what was it about what you did than wheneverr she was doing? to ira --ce was next came first, we started second. i felt we were the younger sibling learning from watching. look, it's a lot easier to take wean issue when you were, as were, when you weren't facing $100 million of industry advertising, when the town was who had with lobbyists a final stake one way or the other. remember, tom moynihan, when the opposition against lamentedre bill, remembering his time in getting his head handed to him in the when he tried to fight for 1990 income, he said looked down the streets of

washington and said, where where's the lobby to stand up for the poor? we had plenty of difficult battles. plenty of difficult family fused. feuds. but the american people were with us. people who were trying to help were with us. the governors critically were us and it helped that it wasn't a partisan issue. were unhappy republicans and democrats and supportive democrats. and i think in retrospect, everybody areed that if there had been way to pursue both at the same time, there was a substantive because as theat out, the manyted thele leaving welfare faced problem of where are they going to get healthcare so that was a policy problem that would have been better solved together and

i think that for americans to chance on health reform, reassured thatbe government could run a two-car funeral, as bill clinton used to say. the first order of business, in proving to them that government reflected their values and could implement a program well, had to the welfare system. >> i have to do this, bruce. advance iell you in was going to do this. but since we brought up the didt lady and mrs. clinton, she ever wander into your office and say can we have a chat about this? my views on welfare reform? or was she busy with other things? wander into my office. [laughter] thever the course of two-year process, there were that?-- we'll leave it at

you want the leak question, ok. over the course of the two-year leaks aboutre were the administration's plans and there was a controversy over a report estimating the somebody who -- number of children who would end up in poverty. anyone in the administration reprimanded for what might be viewed as a lack of discipline?al or is it a white house that may have acted like these things happen and overreacting could worse?ke them bruce: i thought those leaks were despicable. as wendell pointed out, when you administration, that's who you work for. a difference with andpresident, take that her,nt it to him or to especially if it was someone clinton who welcomed

different points of view precisely because he welcomed having thatso debate in the press was shameful. every administration complains about it. i think the fact that we had it, wasn't am with management problem, it was because this was such a tough democraticn the family and feelings ran really strong and there were a few when it was made some in the administration that maybe they want to the straighten up. didn't seem tose work. >> thank you. wendell, you want to comment? wendell: yeah, let me begin by saying, to some extent it was completely authorized in the sense of, in the 1990 budget agreement, i was working for rostenkowski and the democrats and we did a deficit reduction whether thestioning rich were bearing the pain of

deficit reduction or the poor. deficit reduction by definition is pain. you're raising someone's taxes cutting someone's services or benefits and when we lost the majority in the congress, leon -- panetta was the blockabout all granting, not just welfare but granting that was going to go on so i got a call saying pleasehief replicate that analysis that so that's what we started to do, when the house passed their giant budget bill, we were expected to look at whether the poor were paying for deficit reductions or whether the rich and i got the bright idea that i could also the number of children moving across the arbitrary line poverty line. policymakers, as

administration officials do want weknow the impact and when wrote that initial memo, i made knew 400,000ident kids were taken out of poverty e.i.t. changes enacted as part of the budget bill and then what was the the welfareat was impact and that was really s.s.i. changes and the food stamp changes et cetera. and i think those estimates were didn't leak for a long time. the president was showed them. i got a call from bruce. they didn't leak for about theweeks and i did not do leaking. an easier question for the three of you, and will, you can start off because you idea that welfare reform was about more than what in tanif but also had

work support, as well. then we come to the decision on medicaid. earlier panel expressed concern fair to sayut is it that helping people retain their health insurance when they go to work was easier with medicaid not block granted? in other words, in a decision actually have helped the ability of agencies to ensure work and they went to went off cash they could retain some public health insurance? will: i think certainly democrats thought that way, that be block granted, it was safer if it were not block granted and we could make that assurance. grant wasthe block not bill clinton's idea. it, either,pported the d.o.c., in the earlier years work laying on what became the work-first architecture but that was one of the prices you pay when you enter into a bipartisan negotiation. at the time, i learned to love a

block grant, a performance based block grant, one that you can really -- where you can really hold the actors accountable for achieving the goals laid out in the grant. that onthink we've done the tanif grant. that's one of the big problems, i'm sure you've talked about it later. i'm sorry we didn't have a chance to talk more with the thereors about it because was an inordinance cons mance in the idea that states would follow the letter and spirit of 1996 bill with the broad grant of responsibility that the block grant and i don't think that's quite happened so, yeah, i don't think democrats were down for taking another big risk on medicaid to go along with the tanif block grant. >> wendell? hugell: there was literature in the early 1900's about the welfare trap, the fact if mothers left welfare,

they would lose medicaid. absolutelyompson was correct. but with the affordable care act and other changes we have made, that is basically gone. trap, you can get health insurance now for your welfarether you're on or off welfare, and i think, you is still whatence has become of this welfare et cetera,rt, et cetera, but i think it's very hard to disentangle the impacts of welfare reform from the other very good things that bill did, the roaring economy, the chip -- raising the minimum wage, all of those things. and i think slowly the made able care act has big difference in improving the welfare of kids and that literature, larry can correct me thate next panel, literature is gone. theruce, in the history of

final decision, the president his top aides, including most of the cabinet, canter,y reuben, mickey donna shala la, yourself, he said, i had to do, after i did i callednd the house, them all over. you were there and did the final consing for him, pros and and advocated -- despite the fact that only one cabinet supportive, mickey canter. i want to know, could you give us a sense of that meeting? importantly, we're lot andoliticians a they're not all that well deeply grounded in the details of issues.ar where was president clinton? did he give you the sense that he knew more about this than maybe his assistant secretary in h.h.s -- i didn't mean that about you, wendell -- but a sense ofgive us

him as a policy person? >> that was one of the great with him oning domestic policy. i always knew he would know more did.i it was most profound on this particular issue because he'd been a national leader on it from the time he's come to governorship. he'd been in more welfare offices than any other governor. he led the governors in writing family support act so he had for thisntuitive feel couldobody else in town touch. and i vividly remember one meeting in the cabinet room long before wendell and david and jo bain and the welfare cast support briefed the president in 1994 on what we jond and david and mary really wanted to have that meeting to make sure the president was up to speed and conversation got started and

the president said, president about, did you see the latest mrdc report on the and welfareperiment to work and what do you think about that and they were so it,y, they couldn't believe that he was the best student had.d ever have known a lot before he got to be their student. bruce: yes, he did. thesef what matters in things is understanding how it's going to really work when it sos out there to the states bill clinton understood that welfare block grant, if it was funded, wasn't the end of the world because the welfare the state level wasn't worth that much. they could set benefits as low wanted to under the old way but medicaid block grants for poor kidsy

because when that pile of money was in front of the state legislature, a lobby would come big share for long-term care and there wouldn't be much left providing welfare for poor kids and there wasn't a welfare academic in the country who understood that dynamic so it was -- when we got to the meeting in the cabinet wanted to hear everybody's point of view, i genuinely torn about the pros and cons of the package and he was ticked off that the republican had sent him a bill on an issue that they should have supported, hoping that he would veto it. so what i remember most about simply that is everybody recognized the theoric importance of decision, none of us knew what

be, butome would really usually meetings around the table, people are pounding their fists and case.ating their know, this was the most ever seen a debate like this. even rob -- rob passed in that debate. it but helently for didn't weigh in. people recognized that sell the't want to so weent on fear on this said what we thought and he didn't decide in that room. most things with president clinton, the decision went into overtime, went into the oval we had all the same

arguments again and eventually out the housed needed a signal because they were going to vote on it and he said let's do it. says -- maybe it's in his book -- he went in and saw the the president and wanted vice president to say where he was and he had to press the vice president a little bit. the viceah, president -- i think it's one of where that'sns what the president gets paid for going -- it was clear he was going to have to live with the outcome no matter what and what president clinton said he came back from was how you never know how sure you are about a decision until you hear yourself caset and as he made the for it in the press room, i think he became more and more convinced that it was the right thing. it's a great statement.

google it of you to and see the president's statement when he announced he would sign it. last question, in the statement to the press we just talked about, president clinton said 100% of the people with strong views on both sides recognized and respected the power and side and on the other i also want to point out that when the house did the final vote, the final speech was made by the subcommittee chair, clay and gavewent across his final remarks from the democratic side of the house in an effort to reach out. and we haven't mentioned the which it was an overwhelming bipartisan vote. talk about we'll today, has that been lost? and wendell, you want to go first? wendell: well, i think over the last 20 years, it's a little the case that there partisanship.

clearly there is more. i guess i'll use my example of the affordable care act. evidence that it is working administrativea, data, we have lowered the number of uninsured by 20 million at least. costse driven healthcare to their lowest increases ever and when you look at the 50 times that the demise of a.c.a. has been debated on the house floor, the evidence from the other side is really, i think, lacking. i think we ought to engage in more bipartisan bills. we have some big problems in the country dealing with demographic bulge and it makes sense that there be less there clearlyut is not and i think we've got to and havingvidence talks across the aisle to of our very severe

problems. will?ce or would say that -- that let's not romanticize the political landscape of the 1990's. was very difficult. and there was a lot of bitter san -- party -- partisanship then, as well. what made welfare possible and that could make it happen is president clinton was a believer in principle compromise. he recognized that if you're get something done, both sides have to come away feeling it was a fair deal and had a monopoly on the truth and it was important ideas from both sides, not kill each other other side'sp the

ideas from happening. i think that spirit is still mostinside the hearts of of the people who work here. the incentives in the political it.em work against there's an ever-increasing feedback loop if you try to say anything interesting, you get you down quicker now than did then. so it takes a lot more steel and big. but the payoff is we have enormous problems that aren't going to get solved any way and i think there's -- it wheree i've seen republicans and democrats work together and got behind closed doors and actually talked to other about what the real problems were and what they there's to solve it, a -- there's a revelation that them that maybe we're not nearly as bad as the american people think we are. there isn't any problem solve. can

>> i'm under strong instructions rest of my panel. >> i want to make the a point about the political impact from all of this. what's different then from was veryd it fractious. aat lay behind that was social consensus, a broad public quoensus that the status and social policy was broken. it wasn't just the welfare system. inner city schools, public housing, child support. broken in a lot of ways and the great novelty here democratic president led the way to changing it. then to china, to use analogy. politics and substance converged. it wasn't working for people and people't working for the we were asking to pay the bills, u.s. taxpayers. as a result of that, welfare was toxic wedge issue in the

middle of american politics for formativeon, my generation of politics from on, ronaldpaign reagan famously did wonderful with welfare queens and by the new democrats came along, we were sick of this and decided the system wasn't working and we have to realign social policies helps the people it's intended to help and secondly it can win the support of the american people and it was a gamble. sure it was going towere not work out. there were other problems which we will get to. but it was worth taking that gamble and welfare has disappeared from the public debate. now, there are some people who have tried to resurrect it every four years, right to get the whole welfare bugaboo back into it. a halfhearted effort at that, frankly. but the public does not feel that anymore. they are no longer aggrieved by

the social policy they are being asked to pay for they do not think works. that is the fundamental difference. i don't think anyone should be ashamed of bringing the substance of the policy together to improve the system. much.nk you very we have a great panel coming up. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you.

>> thank you. thank you. this is a panel from the perspective of congress. this is a panel of the winners. my name is mickey kaus.

i covered welfare reform for "the new republic" back in the day. i thought i was covering it. i saw the democratic side, not so much the republican side. i have a lot to learn. my job consisted of calling rob haskins on the phone and he would say, i know this is a big problem, but i'm going to take care of it. it seemed like he never lost. heard every other reporter in town was doing exactly the same thing, so it's not like i had special access to ron. he controlled the entire press corps of washington. frome have a good panel the congressional perspective. took what mr.ho weaver in his welfare history calls the panel of low salience in congress, where people win

when they were freshmen and wandered into the wrong committee and they were assigned to that and produced a major piece of legislation of the clinton administration. we have robert wreck your -- robert rector, who at the heritage foundation was a prime mover of a lot of the forces that led to the bill. somebody once described him as powered by his own source of nuclear power, so he is basically unstoppable. and senator talent, who as a member of congress, if you read has the sentence that comes after the anecdote beingsenator talent worried about castle, you can get a lot done if you work with people like him. he was also a very important player on the bill. historically this is a

session. i'm sure we will get into fights. i hope you fight among yourselves because i will not be able to do it. i would like to partition it into before the contract -- >> i would like in between. ok, from thes: mid-80's, were ever you want to ?tart, how did we get there what do you think the key elements were? as a moderated gimmick, at some point in the proceedings, throw when what the worst mistake you made -- the robe and what the worst mistake you can throw in the most million movie made. if you have an opportunity to throw that end, throw that in. ron, will start with you.

mr. haskins: this was not a topic anyone was talking about. before clinton was president, ways and means was talking about where -- welfare, it was always a natural topic. when clinton was elected, several members noticed that whenever he was behind, especially in the midwest in the polls, he would haul out welfare reform. and it worked. there was a lot of -- i would call it almost jealousy that making timemocrat talking about welfare reform, and i think it turned out to be important later because it so to the idea that he did it primarily for political reasons. i personally never believed that. clay shaw who was eventually the chairman of the subcommittee, the most important republican in welfare reform, other than --rt rector, of course,

here is what i think happened. first, we developed a team of experts. now, you will be amazed to hear a lot of republicans could not spell afdc. [laughter] they didn't know anything about welfare reform. it was very important we developed a team of people who really knew what they were talking about and people like -- i will betnt you a nickel, you did not know much about it before we got into this debate, but he was a fast learner. and we had several like that. was, we workedg off of doing the policy and passing a bill in congress depends on a lot of relationships. is one reason we have trouble passing bills now.

these relationships developed over 3, 4, 5 year periods. we had a well oiled machine by the time we took over the house in 1994. and the third on the substantive issues, writing the legislation, learning about the statutes that were in place, what we want to do, and finally, i think the most important thing was we found out where we disagreed. and we knew going in we were going to have a big problem with heritage and that robert was going to be breathing down our next the whole time, and it turned out bill bennett was like that, too. there were definitely cracks in the republican party. it's not like we all were kumbaya."com we had real differences in the republican party and started developing solutions before we were in the limelight. mr. kaus: i remember it was stunning to me when you and heritage came in with the

illegitimacy agenda. i thought everybody was happy and wanted a nice workfare bill. mr. rector: right, the history of how this welfare reform came with ronaldarted reagan. when ronald reagan was governor of california, he wanted to make afdc paras work for their welfare benefits. fromind of blocked him doing that. every year ronald reagan sought one thing, a work requirement for afdc mothers and i got blocked by a democratic congress year after year, and his second term, reagan had an advisor who i believe is really the forerunner of welfare reform. chuck hobbs. and chuck hobbs said we are not going to get what we want, which is a real work requirement for afdc moms through a democratic congress. so, i'm going to invent this thing called waivers.

and the point of waivers, as chuck explained it to me, was not he believed all the wisdom was out in the states. chuck wanted and reagan wanted fare for afdc moms. he says, i'm am going to get two states that run good workfare programs, and those states will allow us to overcome the fundamental objections to it will, which was create a lot of property, and oh, my goodness, it costs much more than the status quo, therefore you can't afford to do it. that really blocked efforts to reform. and chuck said, we have to break through that. we have to show that is nonsense. all i need to do that is two states. and he got them. wisconsin and oregon. ok? that enabled us to set the grant to say it's not true that a work based system is more expensive than a handout system.

so, chuck set the waiver process in place, but in place to lead to national work requirements. then along came clinton. clinton got ronald reagan's lines. he understood them perfectly. he understood they were overwhelmingly popular with the public, as your polling showed, at that time and he took over the issue. meantime, the bush administration was sitting there saying, waivers, waivers, waivers, thinking bush allowed clinton to take away reagan's issue from them, allowed clinton to flank him on the right. from my perspective, that is the issue that put clinton in the white house in 1992, took it right from ronald reagan, maybe with a little arkansas spin on it, and putting in their -- put it in there. and then what happened was, you did not do welfare reform. you did gays in the military,

hillarycare. your bill,ied to do you ran into this stupid budget law. cbo said anything you had to do would cost more than the status quo, so any bill up to the contract for america, the work requirements did not take place until you are outside the budget window, right? you are 8, 9, 10 years out before the actual work requirements occur so you can get beyond this ridiculous cbo score. i can't emphasize how very important that was and how this issue shaped out. one of the things we did in the summer of 1994 was, first of all, we said we would block grant afdc, so it does not matter what cbo says it costs, but just to convince the republican party that cbo was full of it and the standard conventional wisdom from the big beltway bandits was if you put a work program and it will reduce

the caseload by 5% over two years -- i knew from my experience going back 15 years i can get a 90% reduction in the afdc program and about two months with a work requirement, that it would cause the caseload to go down rapidly and save money. that would allow us to get past the budgetary hurdle you guys were stuck with. the worst thing i ever did was to tell jim talent he was wasting his time to work on the contract with america. and that he should ignore it. i'm glad he did not. >> from my perspective, i think the coming together, the proximity in town, but also in people --ally able well, since i'm in this group, maybe i should not say really

able, but people across town who actuallymunity cared about what was happening in lower income america. now, everybody cares here in the sense that if they could snap their fingers and make things better for poor people, they would. but cared in the sense which is meaningful in this town, which is i am willing to take some risks, i am willing to examine some of my positions about all of this, i'm willing to spend some money. willing to go out on a limb and make it a priority over time and see what emerges. i am not a guy who runs washington down a lot. here a long time. i actually liked almost all of my colleagues. i think that is unusual. it went on for a long time. laid with aon was

lot of writing from charles murray, alice rivlin, harry meade, a lot of people, and i think we all kind of got together and i was -- obviously i was a second term congressman. i did not deal directly with the administration. it was mostly republicans in the house, but we talked about clay, but santorum and camp and nancy johnson and tim hutchinson -- there are so many names. people were really trying to figure out what would work. from our perspective on the republican side, and i think a lot of democrats felt this way, too -- the two best anti-poverty programs that have gotten americans out of poverty for generation our work and marriage basically. hingee have done is assistance to poor people are not engaging in that. that's over simple vacation, but we felt that that was the problem and we wanted to fix it. -- that's an

oversimplification, but we felt that was the problem and we wanted to fix it. so many policies never got off .he ground cause of cbo or omb ok? i'm sorry if you work for one of those organizations. this is an example. when we did the community renewal act, which was the follow-up to this, and the president signed that in 2000 and said it would bring the benefits of capitalism to the poor -- it was the only signing ceremony i ever attended. i went over there for that. we had this bill that was designed to renew distressed communities around the country. a lot of pilot programs -- and the press said, how much is this going to cost. i want everybody to step back and ask yourself this question. do you think this bill will really help to renew the worst and most distressed annuities in

the country? ok. if you don't think that, then you do not want to support the bill, fine. if you do think that, how can it cost money? think about it. how could it and up costing us money if it's going to bring all of these neighborhoods -- it can't. i don't care what cbo says. i don't care what omb says. it can cost money, right? and the big -- i don't know if i would call it a mistake. my regret was we were never able to take the out of wedlock worth rate issue, and cap's allies it -- encapsulated in a legislative agenda and a way that was represented in the work issue and still haven't. there was not a welfare bill that was part of the contract of america that the inublicans ran on and one on 1994, and then all eyes turned a congress, and there is history that follows that, which culminates in clinton veto in

congress's product twice, once as part of the budget, once as a stand-alone, and then something happens to get the republicans started up again and produce a bill he could sign. at some point the governor's lobby for a revolution. aideps some unidentified in congress said they wanted congress to leave the money on a stump in the middle of the night in a forest so they could take it. but luckily, this person was too self-effacing to ever have himself identified with this court. ron, do you want to talk about the post-contract history? yeah, a lot of things happened. a lot of the big difference on the republican side, clay shaw and the republicans always wanted to pass a bill, and santorum, i swear, had been there 30 seconds and he wanted to pass a bill. that was always part of our

thinking. other people wanted to make a political point, show the president was a wimp, they wanted a contrast between the republicans on the president, and we wanted to close the gap so we could pass a bill. thinking aioned our lot. republicans were clinically depressed after the second time he didn't sign the bill. there was a big -- thinking oh, what is next? we did all this work. sent it through twice. what really happened, kick started -- there were underlying factors, but the kickstart came from the governors. it just so happened to the nga was in town. i think it was the end of february. they had a plan. it was bipartisan. -- i talked to shaw and archer and said, called gingrich. we want on this. we have to modify it. it's never going to pass. robert rector will hate it. heritage will hate it. but it will get us off the mat

and we can get rolling. i see you want me to stop, so i will. mr. kaus: we have 10 minutes to go, so we have to be quick. didn't have to do with dole's flagging fortunes. the old one of the issue versus clinton, so he was happy with the veto -- mr. haskins: that was a factor. that became a factor. that became effective. the republicans on the ways and means committee, they requested himeting with newt and told straight up, our bill, achievements by the republican revolution -- which had not done anything -- was way more important mental's candidacy. let him worry about his candidacy. we were going to pass this bill. and we did. mr. talent: we did not take the campaign into account. they seeok at this and

the linear connections -- of course, politicians are always thinking politically. you have to, because if you don't have a sustainable political base for what you're i was ao achieve -- second term congressman. i never thought we sent it over he would veto it so dole could win the election. i know -- i have been in enough of those tables to know -- i don't care what happens on tv, that is not what, you know -- and i never thought the president said, oh, i'm going to lose the election unless i -- just stop and think about this for a minute. of course in the back of his mind, he may have said to himself, this probably makes the next three weeks or a month a little easier, something like that. but i just wanted to ring in and say, that's just not how they make decisions. mr. kaus: robert, do you agree? doleector: i agree in that

has been very weak on welfare reform -- had basically bungled it during his election bid, only reinforces that. it hard to find believe. maybe it is because i'm a political reporter and we don't sincerity to anybody, but if dole had been doing better and it had been 5249 point five, clinton and all, i can't believe republicans would've done the same thing. mr. kaus: i think that would -- mr. rector: i think that would have enclosed it. but he managed to take a lot of people off. he was an impediment in the senate. he ran horribly on it in the campaign. what he did in the campaign when he was running for president, he said, oh, the did a focus group and everything and they found that people really liked drug testing for welfare recipients. really well.d so, ok, we are going to do drug

testing for welfare recipients, was a big- dole states flexibility guy, so dole says -- they have a big press conference -- you probably remember this -- they roll out this big new initiative. we are going to require drug testing, except it will be a state option, at which point, clinton says -- and three minutes he says, ok. a waiver.ve and the whole welfare thing just collapses. of course, in that kind of dynamic, you have the list of things that you want and the exchanges to that point should have given you a pretty good idea what the president and his people are going to have heartburn over. of course, you are going to push him as far to the edge -- the fact he had to think about it shows we made good judgments and there he had to

guide on -- there are things we wanted we knew he did not want. it does not mean we wanted him to veto it. it just means we thought, well, we can put him in a position where we can get some things we want we could not have gotten any other way. i'm sure that was the dynamic. a quickins: let me make point. it will be more than a minute. this is a really crucial thing. you are going to have at least nine out of 10 bills you will have serious internal conflicts, and the party that is really a masters those can contain them and hold their votes. i went through and counted the votes in the floor -- republicans were a machine. even though there was a lot of hard feelings sometimes. our votes.etained that is how come we were able to pass the bill. lastaus: this is a good question, also a good segue to the next panel. wayyou happy with the

governors have handled the evolution under the bill? chuck hobbs, i think, was right. the problem was not one size does not fit all. one size probably would fit all if we knew what the size was. [laughter] mr. kaus: have any of the governors, taking this new authority you gave them, done enough to find out what the size is? i would say i could not possibly be more disappointed with -- mr. rector: i would say, i could not possibly be more disappointed with governors. the first five years under the act when the federal work requirements were pushing governors forward, caseloads felt her magically, employment increased. by the time governors met the standards, it fell into stasis. today, as we speak, in the average state, 55% of the caseload is sitting at home doing absolutely nothing. why is it 55%? federalwhat the

standards require you cannot go below that. to the extent to the act succeeded was because of federal requirements. the opposite picture of that was on the question of marriage, all we got was three of four major goals of the act were to increase marriage and reduce nonmarital childbearing. now spent $600 billion on an act where three out of four goals were to promote marriage and what do we get from the states? one in measurably small marriage program in one state after 20 years. goodlly don't have opinions about state welfare bureaucracies, but they came in way below even my expectations. the final point that is really important is people are always talking about did we spend enough on tan of -- tanf? theseher thing it did was funding.

any other state if they wanted a big welfare cash check program, they could do that, but they had to do that with state money, not federal money. what we found after 20 years, even the most liberal states have not done that. they have kept their caseloads low -- with the exception of oregon -- a have kept their caseloads low, because to do toerwise would force them spend real money. federal money is not real money to them. their money is real. they are much more prudent in the way they spend their money. that is a real federalist lesson. collecting money in washington and dumping it on the states is not federalism. making the state governments spend their own money on welfare, they are not going to be conservatives, but they are going to be much more frugal than if it is washington money. mr. haskins: here is the thing -- at the time, the block grant was a good idea. it shook things up, it gave the voters like tommy thompson and

engler control. but then it turned out the governors became a mashed in politics. they had to do something about daycare. they had to give scholarships for college. they were pulled in all different directions. we gave them the flexibility. so, they had tons of flexibility. but we are still in charge. we still write the statutes. why aren't republicans doing something? it could be changed. for example, we could change tomorrow the statute that the onernors can only spend tanf resh welfare and workfa programs. i think that would be prudent. i know robert would like to but marriage in there -- mr. kaus: take the first part out, spend cash money -- [laughter]

mr. haskins: >> when i went back into the senate and we did the reauthorization, at the time, i was disappointed because we had a wave for about 10 years of governors who were willing to take risks, to challenge things from different perspectives, and we saw two of them today in bill keene did some of this. there were a lot of governors have their. and we just aren't hearing that. i just want to do a disservice to anyone out there, but no one is asking themselves -- if you want to helpful to the question boths a of changing the incentive structure so that they do take more responsibility for their lives, but also giving them the kind of outside assistance that enables them to do that and gives them hope they can do it.

what would you- do if it was your little sister? you would make certain your needs were met. you would provide her with encouragement, but you would also say, there are some changes and decisions in your own life you are going to have to -- that is how anybody would treat someone they cared about. so the problem is, how do you re-create that the processes of government? it is technically very difficult. you will not do it through bureaucratic model, but you will not do it just by changing the incentives and letting people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. you have to find other ways, and that requires a lot of effort, innovative governorship -- we can do pilot programs appear, and i have done that. the states are an ongoing pilot we do need more innovative governors to do more from right of center and left of center and to push their own

groups who will tell them you can't change anything,, because if you change anything a poverty rates will go up. i'd agree, i am disappointed. questions, you will have to save them for the next panel. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> as is always said, this panel is between you and the reception. [laughter] >> so be nice to us, because we know the chef. roff, and iesche teach at the university of maryland. i want to thank the last panel for setting up this panel. we have a small panel. and we have all of 30 minutes. so here is what we are going to do. i'm not going to introduce them. two, except for a couple sentences i will hardly say anything,. but i will tell you what the assignment was. , besides all that reminiscing, was we have to do a

better job in the future. the assignment to this panel is tell us what we should do in the future. we are going to start with the staff director of house ways and means subcommittee of human is a successor -- then we will go down the list. and because she is a big shot and because this is her home, she gives 10 minutes. everyone else gets five minutes. anyone who ends early gets our love and appreciation. five minutes because i do have to keep this to roughly on-time. thank you very much. >> well, thank you. to follow ron, he raised the bar when he had it in the last

panel. we have certainly our work cut out for us these days. the fact that there has been a discussion draft of their, there has been movement, but in the last 10 years we happen to dinner major reauthorization of the program, and that is something we are struggling with and work in a bipartisan way to do. i'm going to set up where we are now and what we see going forward. at the committee, and the speakers' efforts. in, the last two years we released a discussion draft and got a lot of feedback. there is still a lot of thoughts on both sides about how this program should operate, how it has played out, what the role has been the states, what the role of the federal government should be. activate continues. -- that debate continues.

at debate about education and training and what role it should play is the top of the mound. that is not something we have been able to break through at the subcommittee or in the congress, because we started from the bottom up in the last year or so, and looking at what pieces could be pick off to put it back in the box. the last panel did a nice job of segueing into where we are today, what states are using the money for. are they focusing on individuals under 200% of poverty? not all of them. what can we do to get them back to their purpose, and in doing that, there are good lessons we have learned. and when it was created in 1996, when all the debates were going on about welfare reform, ultimately a was about just one program. there will luck of discussions about medicaid and food stamps, but ultimately the only reformed

one program. and to thee, speaker's task force on poverty opportunity and upward mobility, we have been focusing on what is that mean going forward. be familiar with the welfare state charge the government put out which devastates the -- with demonstrates the 80 programs that create welfare. those programs haven't been touched. they haven't been focused on, helping full truth from where they are from where they need to be. so the progress that has been made over the last 20 years has opened our eyes to what we need to do next, and that means going beyond it, strengthening relationships with the child support enforcement program. what are other ways in which the lessons we learned about establishing paternity, setting expectations, can be applied to other programs that include food

stamps or housing or how do we engage fathers? it's also about looking at other programs and how they're expecting work, or not expecting work, and how those things that together. for those of us at the ways and means committee, we have four themes that we see guiding us going forward to not only apply the lessons of tnf but to reapply them to the larger safety net across the programs. be it really continues to expects work in exchange for benefits, preparing for work, doing something, getting out of the house. that piece remains and is a big part of what should be a basis for our programs.

the second part is getting the incentives right. we heard it on the last panel. it is not just incentives for states, that individuals, for nonprofits to engage in the process. it's making sure the financial incentives are there for folks to do the right thing so we can take our hands off and let them do what it is they do best. that goes along with our third theme, focusing on the results of our welfare program. we have come a long way. in the 1980's to and 1990's, about evaluation. they weren't just, go do this thing, but do this thing, left to study it, let's understand it, let's see what the impact are. we have come to a point where we are much more effective at doing evaluation, much quicker at ndrning results around, a making that a consistent part of how it is we do public policy.

everyone likes to talk about evidence, but embedding it in the way we do our business. that goes along with the incentives. you can set up things to create the incentives for the evaluation. and fourth, improving the integrity. these programs are there for those who truly need them the most. it,tor talent talked about making sure that needs are met. but we also need to make sure the integrity of the program is there so we are keeping those who aren't necessarily eligible, because we do have limited resources. states may think the money comes from the sky, but it doesn't. it comes from hard-working owe it to, and we wo them to spend their money properly. when we bring those things together,. other committees, you create a

system that helps to support families. today we talked a lot about a program from where we sit and think about these issues, a system. a family does not walk into a welfare office and say, i need this program. they walk in and they have trouble. they can't pay their electric bill. they can't give their kids to school on time because they don't have transportation and they need to get to work. they don't care what these programs are; that is our to make it work for families that are out there. i think i under time, but i just want to point out that we are making progress. we hope folks will remain engage in the conversation. what we have been doing on a bipartisan basis, trying to take it out of the appropriations process, where it has been straight extensions with a few minor changes, and really regain

the program. aen to also look and take wider view at what's going on with the rest of our safety. >> thank you. notwithstanding what it looks like, we aren't going to go in order. >> flexibility. >> flexibility. the next speaker. ok, ok. wisconsin, we are trying to go at the issue with two-parent families. i like to get people to think about -- we don't believe that there is anybody in our caseload who has had an immaculate conception. so because we don't believe that, and we believe that most of the children come with another parent attached to them somewhere, that we really want

to go after fathers. so what we have done is looked at one of the goals, to put families together. we're looking at noncustodial fathers really hard. we put in three programs to be able to do that. one is, in all of them provide some kind of subsidy to men. i know that is kind of unusual, because most of these guys really do need subsidized employment. a couple things we found out about it is that when we get guys jobs, many of them get married. it ought to say something to us that men don't marry when they don't have jobs. that if we can get them employment, they tend to form families. the other side is women don't marry men who don't have jobs. so it is kind of critical that we figure out how to get men jobs.

go we also found out that getting them jobs is not enough. we also need to figure out -- many of them come to us, having been in the child welfare system, having been in prison, having a lot of trauma in their life. they also need the kind of support systems we usually give to women but we don't give to men. we need to put those kinds of support systems -- much more clinical. they also need, and i know you will not like this, spiritual development, because many of them have no faith at all. the other one is communication skills. my favorite is math skills. one of the reasons we focus on math skills is because within wisconsin, one of the jobs that are growing are infrastructure jobs. plumbers,, electricians carpenters, construction workers, and welders. all of those require the same skit of skills -- same set of skills, math.

algebra, geometry, trig. they aren't difficult subjects and we can teach them pretty fast. one of the things we are pushing his math skills. best skills of others can have decent jobs so they can have a family. the other thing we are looking isthat causes welfare changing our provider system. most of the people who provide social services are women. that's the wrong set of providers. what we would like to have is for men providing services to men so men will get what they need to change their trajectory. the other thing that we would like to see more of is more perpetrator programs, because a lot of our men have found themselves in the mystic file in situations, and they go into domestic violence programs that

are designed by women for what they think men need. to allude like to have is more programs designed by men for what men meet. we want to turn our system around toward getting men a fair opportunity within our system, and we believe that if we give men a fair opportunity, we start to deal with the goals, to support marriage and father involved families. that's it. >> thank you. [indiscernible] >> it sounds quite logical. first of all, great to see so many involved in this revolution. it's really been a great privilege to be involved. the states played a crucial role in developing welfare reform. you heard about that from the governor's earlier, and also

through the jobs programs. states figured out how to build work into the welfare system. they didn't all do it equally well, but we have heard about some exemplars, in the case of wisconsin, michigan, and new york city, where you still have a well-developed work system. this was, i think, a real success. the problem with the personal responsibility act, however, is that it not only allows to diverge from's away from it, but it does not require the states maintain work programs which they had previously instituted. they now could satisfy the work participation requirements mainly by taking credit for the many jobs which welfare mothers got on their own. will we don't really have in many states today is a serious work program aimed at welfare mothers. what anne is talking about are

efforts to reconstruct the kind of work programs that states had under the waiver system. we need to go back to an idea that there has to be a program aimed at mothers with a structure that allows experimentation, which is important, but there has to be a federal structure goal to aim it at. to,things we want to lead to come out of welfare. i think that is the way things are going, and clearly we need to have something beyond participation standards. the other thing i want to do, i'd like to see, we need to extend welfare reform beyond welfare mothers, which is essentially what it addressed in the 1990's. we need to have welfare reform for men. that is what eloise is talking about. much howus book pretty

one can do that by using the child support system and criminal justice system. these systems are aimed, in a sense, at punishing men who we think have obligations to work, but we don't actually create the institution for them to do that. what we need to do is to have work programs aimed at men who should be working either in child support or in criminal justice. the states are developing these programs more than we realize. it's just that nobody inside the beltway has heard about it. we need to take seriously that progress is being made here, and we need to move forward with the kind of reforms which the federal child enforcement has already suggested. those reforms have been held up in congress. we need to unblock that. and otherwise develop the structure to have the series work program for men. i think that is the frontier. we need to improve it and we especially need to have welfare

reform for men. i'll lay that huge challenge at your feet and ask people to work on that more than they have up to now. >> [indiscernible] [laughter] >> howard, you were there through [indiscernible] >> yeah. well, one advantage of coming at the end as i don't have to read my notes, because most people have said what i want. i just want to develop what ron and larry just talked about. it seems to me in 1996 there was great promise that states would develop more comprehensive work programs, programs that would address more issues, that would not only deal with getting people into work but also helping them stay in work, helping them advance. i think there was initially a lot of enthusiasm for that.

hhs at the time, a a lot of states were interested in that. them, jointcts with efforts together. that pretty much died out. i think there are a number of reasons why, but i think it's basically -- the money was drained out of the program for other purposes. work programs have kind of withered rather than developed. i think the only way we can remedy that is to bring money back for that purpose, and for that purpose alone. maybe ron is correct that you could do that by restricting it. the other option is to put new money in. i think there are a lot of disagreements about what the content of that money would go for, that i would say it should go for state developed work programs. i myself would provide a lot of

flexibility and require rigorous evaluation. i think that is a way we could learn about what's effective and what isn't, and i think it also would energize states, potentially, to really take this effort seriously. i think there are a number of reasons why the money left for other reasons. part of it is that some of them were good things, like more childcare, stronger child protective services. but i think it was also because those things were easy. it was an existing system, you knew what to do, you could augment what was going on. developing more comprehensive work programs was really a new frontier, and i think that was why it was exciting for a while, but think it was hard to do. it was easy to take the money, to other things with it, and a

lot of money when for purposes totally unrelated. i think it is hard to deny that. i think the only way to do it is to bring back something like the waiver experience, where states are encouraged to develop, and are given some money, and that is all they can do with it. -- without money, i don't think there will be any progress in this area. >> [indiscernible] so, first let me admit, there is maybe something wrong with me but i gu'm enjoying it. i guess i'm a policy geek. i came in as a welfare administrator in the state of iowa in 1993, is the state was implementing statewide waivers. waivers, somer of

things we had copied from other states that you heard from the governors and others. i was told we were the first at the time to do a true, statewide,. sanction. i came in as that was implemented, signing off on more studies. impacts and policy changes and process studies. but i think what we have learned out of that, and two years later i worked with governor engler, what we learned out of all of that is that what we are trying to do, in the simplest form, was increased risk and rewards through things like work incentives, making work pay opportunities to build assets, creating the rewards and opportunities for welfare recipients to go to work. the risks were, of course, really transforming into the form of, we need to make these

programs look like employment. so there has to be some consequence if you don't show up to work on time. you get docked in pay or you lose your job. you don't participate in the work programs, you lose some or all of your benefits. that was an important message moving forward. when welfare reform passed, if i were asked consolidate two things that had the biggest impact, one is the flexibility. everybody has talked about it. whether it is good, that, great abused,, whatever, but i think it drove a lot of impact and regardless of what you think the bottom line is i will defend that the current system is better than what we had. the second thing that i think made a huge difference was participation rate. it truly change the culture of state government. we talked about things like jobs programs under the family support program. we had toyed with the work programs, of the work participation rate made it real. we had to change the culture, we

had to do things differently. as congress thinks about what they want to do, i started at 100,000 feet and i'm not sure i didn't get anne's notes. when you big about the framework you have to think about the outcomes. in the original, we were about job placements and caseload reduction. we started thinking about things like wage rates and retention, and i was a retention is a great example of a good outcome, because it means you have the placement, you have that an income level, a participant satisfaction, employer satisfaction. there has to be agreement on the outcomes. there have to be incentives to drive the behavior. and there has to be aspects of the program integrity. finally, the work participation rate fits into the outcome discussion. i don't think it is working today the way people want it to. i think states are doing a lot of good things to put people to work but i think it needs to be

restructured. i think we need to talk about outcomes. i hope that flexibly these days, and part of that challenges the debate around --, rapid job attachment work in training. -- it really depends on participant needs, on your local economic area, what are the jobs you have? an abundance of middle skilled jobs, entry-level? do you have sectors with good employment where you can create training programs? those are the kind of things that i think drive the need to retain flexibility so the states can tailor those programs. it doesn't mean there shouldn't be accountability, but i think that flexibility will be important. i'll yield the balance of my time. >> [indiscernible] >> thank you.

i'm going to pick up on something that anne said. one of the tenants is expect work in exchange for benefits. i think it is increasingly difficult, if you adhere to that concept as a way forward from where we are, to effectuate it. and i will explain my. it is much more difficult today than before. passed,fare reform was one of the things we learned is you reallyrkers say, we are going work, to help you look for a job and put you in a position to take a job. when that was perceived as the only option, for the best option, or if you didn't take that option to go to work in the private sector you would end up working in a community service job are going to training -- in other words, your time was occupied. back then, that was a powerful

incentive when we learned people went right into words, your tims occupied. incentive.powerful you do not have to take someone in the front door and process them. theirlity, people act in that part of and the system is not functioning because the system is awash in money that was not there before. people can survive on it and avoid work. let's take food stamps. eitc,ree examples are food stamps, and disability. the incentivede

to not work. does havey the eitc an incentive. i will disabuse you. for 2.1 cases and you can look at the food stamps. eeople with food stamps combin it. when they go to work, they close the food stamps cases. a decision by the bush and administration was to expand food stamps and there was no pairing of work and food stamps and the red line shows the same that are not expected

to work and they do not. bandisability has expanded academic work revolves around disability is a substitute for retirement for those who want to retire early and it has to be attacked. to way to get to this is condition this to a participation standard, including vocational education and this congress will not abide by this and neither will the social security office. the earned income tax credit pairs your work with actual benefits and it is a good thing.

, betweenearned is that january and march, welfare recipients do not come in to participate in work activity because they take the benefits without having earned them. get turbotax to make up self-employment and take children from other families and check forand get a $6,000. that is a huge problem. you take those things and we have a system that we did not have 20 years ago and the next thing we need to do is focus on programs that

should have a work program requirement. >> i am an academic and i am forced to come to some conclusions. welfare reform took 20-30 years. when did you write about this program? inthe first article was 1983. >> the program started in 1967. there was a history of a lot of people getting involved and we have heard that nothing much was going on and we heard about some of the things that are going on and we have not had a process that brings that to the public

20-30 year time frame that welfare reform took place. you have heard people talk about job training and the fact is that we do not know how to do it and we do not have the infrastructure to doing it and it is hard. better.er we start, the we realize that we are not doing that much today and a number of people talk about the waivers and the money available for the states and the experiments. need tolearly going to lubricate the system, whether the money comes --

we hope this will be on the table and they work it out. you cannot think that this process moves to fruition by having 10-15 experts. it will take the kind of work that came to fruition in the 1990's and this process has to start again. for the organizers, let me thank you. you have been a great audience. before you clap for this panel, we want to make this announcement. >> there are several of us getting together for dinner and, if youeception would like to come and pay for your dinner --

>> they heard that. up and letould stand tammy know that you want to join us, we will be walking to both ullfeathers. this is 5:45. at 6:45 -- >> immediately! >> there you go. thank you. >> we will schedule -- [indiscernible]

clinton passed the law for welfare reform. you can see how the lines are divided up. have a line for those who been a recipient and we will start out in corpus christi. on the line for democrats. after this welfare change, is

more needed? $950r: they should not pay a baby. christi, some of these they girls start at 13 and have six or seven kids. host: we move on. you are on the line for republicans. what is your opinion of welfare passed by the republican congress and signed by bill clinton? caller: i think that some of them definitely need to go to and wed a lot of us work have to pay high taxes. i don't think you guys should cut people off.

it does need to be regulated in a bad way. i know that people use welfare checks for drugs. we lost that call. part of the welfare reform is changing work requirements and imposing time limits on the cash assistance and allowing states more control over those welfare dollars. the line for democrats. caller: my name is jennifer. i received social security disability and i was going to have a bypass surgery and i do not see why they try to cut social security. and i am0 for rent

i have to do0 and i don't have any money and i do not know what they are crying about. i have been working my whole life and there comes a time where you need this and they give you a hard time to get it. i do not understand that. host: let's take a look with the republicans tweeted out. they celebrate the -- on the subject of welfare reform , paul ryan put out a video today. let's take a look at that. ryan: this is a work-replacement system and it

penalizes work and people do not work, staying stuck in poverty. is war on poverty approach treating the symptoms of poverty , instead of going after the root causes. many people are in poverty because they are not working and getting a chance to make their lives for themselves. we are removing the penalties placed on those in poverty so work will pay and it makes sense to get a race and you are not penalized. that is the core principle of the welfare reform plan. jill stein says --

jill stein and her vice presidential pick will be on the air tomorrow. so, tune in for that. let's look for your reaction to this anniversary of welfare reform. valley.from apple no ahead. caller: i have four points to make to the rest of the colors. campaigned clinton on ending welfare. that was one of his campaign platforms. and, now, we are dealing with his wife with business like that. welfare reform, the way this congress and country deals with it, it has more to do with black than the economy. it is the continuation of the

slavery syndrome, in that sense. reform can only mean that there will never be lityress or quality -- equa in america. when you need welfare reform, there is something wrong to begin with. , are you a welfare recipient? the workers are so racist at the welfare office $430they gave me a allotment and they are trying to sue me. my question is for the people on the panel and who wrote the laws

, i want to ask if they think was instituting these laws helping africans? the jobs went around the country. what were they thinking with this program of laying down and dying? now that they see what they are getting, these people are treated like animals. you look at this situation. how blind can you people be? that is my question. host: thanks. aboutt, a special program

that law. we will see what people were saying and how changing the system has impacted people. let's go to our line for democrats. caller: how are you? mind?host: what is on your weler: people on disability, are living under poverty. since the wages have not been buying groceries with food stamps, it does not last and they know that and they you.to penalize centave to report every

that somebody gives you to them. if you don't, you are penalized. how is a person supposed to survive if families do not step in and help? where is the uplifting of the if the government is not helping you war is only helping you to the point where you have to reach out to family members? it does not make sense to penalize anyone, even disability people. they tried to work. you.they want to penalize foodwant to give you

stamps that only feed you for 2-3 meals. that is a conspiracy. host: let's go to florida. it is leonard. what is on your mind? caller: hey. i have points. i'll take the answers off the air. i've always been a republican i think we have under shortchanged the people. that, over 10-20 years, they should chain this to the rate.tion weigh

those who are not on welfare will antonin better to do with their time. lady talked about food stamps and she is right that there is a lot of food that is wasted and food stamps do not pay a lot. we need to get our hands on these apples and we can move this forward. host: thanks. let's look active bill clinton signing the welfare reform legislation into law. we will show you some tape. clinton: we are ending welfare as we know it. i hope this day will be ,emembered as offering hope

honoring responsibility, and changing the terms of the debate so that nobody ever feels the need to criticize people on welfare. i hope they will feel the need to reach out to people who are willing to assume responsibility. host: bill clinton from 1996 and we are talking about this with john. hi there. what is on your mind? , as far asg to this years,fare being at 20

lift for thea asck community and, as far being a democrat or not, obama it was -- host: are you talking about the conservative writer? me.er: they helped andas an embarrassment of redas the audacity

tape and regulation and i can helping out. says that there is a difference between a ladder and a rope. you build your freedom and you search for happiness. as far as change being needed, this is growing like a cancer method ofa rope pulling you up and giving you so much to leave you there. you could climb a ladder.

rope choice and this covert enslavement. host: i think we have your points. were moving on. what is on your mind? caller: can you hear me? disability and women do not get a lot of money and they get disabled and they need some of the extra side money. we should not judge people had lawi have

enforcement people who do bad things and have threatened to kill my animals. not all law enforcement is good. sexually abuse women. they threatened my animals. could be reasons that people need this money that they don't even think about. are out of time and we have a special program tonight that will march the anniversary of this welfare law reform. let's look and see what you will see. >> today marks the anniversary of the welfare law passed by the republican congress and signed

by bill clinton. we are looking at the debate over the law. >> the current welfare system has failed the families it was supposed to serve. >> i do not know many people who want to humiliate themselves and they are standing out there for the welfare checks. there are druggies and drunks. they are out there. a lot of these people are people who have not yet discovered a way out of misery and poverty. >> the governors and the legislatures are as concerned about the poor as we are. inserted about the status of welfare in the states. >> it includes the discussions about how these changes impacted the poor. >> our answer will not be a

cycle of welfare. it will be dignity, power, and work ethic. we are a chance to make welfare what it was meant to be, a second chance and not a way of life. >> for the next hour, our cities tour visits michigan to learn about the history. traveled to interview .istorians and leaders

this has decreased over the have all types of this aand i would call little bit distressed.

nice place to raise a family and we have a lot of anderent things going on this unemployment rate is higher. it has gone down. we are always a little bit higher than the rest of the state. we have had improvements over the last years. we are all crawling out of this and we have wonderful things happening and i am proud. there has really been an and isting downtown