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 about, it started with ronald reagan. when ronald reagan was governor of california, he wanted to make afdc paras work for their welfare benefits. hhs kind of blocked him from 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. his name was 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

ok -- mr. kaus: ok, from the mid-80's, were ever you want to start, 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 here is a democrat making time 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 mo