MSNBC Host Calls Out Iowa Governor For Lying About Obama’s Welfare Waivers

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress
The Romney campaign spent last week claiming that the Obama administration is trying to “gut” the welfare reform law of the 90s. The Romney camp portrayed the administration as removing the work requirements included in that law, when all the administration did is offer states waivers to design new work programs if they choose.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd today, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad continued the parade of falsehoods, continually claiming that the administration single-handedly weakened work requirements in the welfare law, despite Todd’s protestations:

BRANSTAD: We reformed welfare in the 1990s, now the Obama administration’s trying to undo the work requirement.

TODD: Wait a minute, Gov. Branstad, I can’t let that go. They haven’t done that. [Crosstalk] You leveled a charge about the welfare work requirement. It turns out that’s not true. Where did you get your information?

BRANSTAD: It absolutely is. I was one of the governors that helped get it, and when we passed it, it was designed not to be waived. And now the President of the United States has, by executive order in July, weakened that which was very effective.

TODD: The waivers are for state governors. The waivers are for you. [...] If governors weaken it to a certain point, the federal government yanks the waiver. [...] Nothing about this issue, every charge that has been leveled about this welfare reform order that the president signed, every accusation that has been leveled by some Republicans have been proven to be not true.

BRANSTAD: Well, the fact of the matter is that the president did it. He didn’t have to take this action to weaken the strong work requirement that was passed.

TODD: It doesn’t weaken it…The works still there, governor, it’s still there.

Watch it:

Former President Bill Clinton, who signed the welfare reform law, called Romney’s charges “disappointing” and “not true.” CBS’s AdWatch added, “It’s a leap to assume that governors and legislators will seek to return to ‘plain old welfare’ and that the Obama administration will give them the go-ahead.”

When he wasn’t lying about how the welfare waivers would operate, Branstad was praising the 90s welfare reform law, which, in reality, has rendered aid programs incapable of getting funds to those who need it most in an economic downturn. Welfare aid used to reach 75 percent of families living in poverty, but during the heart of the Great Recession, fewer than 30 percent of impoverished families received help.

Gingrich: ‘We have no proof’ to support Romney’s welfare attack

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Appearing on CNN Wednesday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) admitted “we have no proof” to support the most recent attack at by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney hitting President Barack Obama for supposedly scrapping a welfare work rule.

The ad is blatantly false; a fabrication critics say is aimed at stirring up resentment toward people of color. Yet, amid a flurry of negative speculation in the media over why Romney refuses to release his tax returns, the deceptive welfare attack has suddenly emerged at the very epicenter of the Republican’s struggling presidential campaign.

And on Wednesday night, Anderson Cooper just wouldn’t let Gingrich explain that away.

After pressing the issue several times trying to get Gingrich to say whether he believes the ad is accurate, the former speaker seemed to crack. “If the ad makers had asked me, I would have said, ‘This makes it possible’ would have been a good way to enter into the wording of what was said,” he tried to explain.

“We have no proof today, but I would say to you under Obama’s ideology, it is absolutely true that he would be comfortable with sending a lot of people checks for doing nothing. I believe that totally,” Gingrich added later in the interview, explaining that if it were his ad, it would have called Obama “the leading foodstamp president in American history.”

The number of Americans reliant on government assistance to buy food grew by more than 70 percent between 2008 – 2011, driven by a lack of jobs and the unavailability of credit as the country grappled with a near total economic collapse at the end of President George W. Bush’s second term.

Despite the nearly unprecedented economic pressure on working class Americans, President Obama did not scrap a rule that requires welfare beneficiaries to look for work. Instead, the administration gave states the option to waive federal welfare work rules if officials come up with a plan that can increase employment among the poor even more.

That change was initially sought by Republican and Democratic governors alike, and even Romney, as the former governor of Massachusetts, signed on (PDF) in 2005. Republicans in Congress, however, turned against the waivers after the president agreed to it.

Far from being the opponent of welfare reform the Romney campaign is trying to depict him as, President Obama moved from saying as a state senator that the bi-partisan welfare reform of the Clinton years had “problems” to actively touting its successes in a 2008 campaign ad.

This video was broadcast by CNN on Wednesday, August 8, 2012.

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Romney's welfare accusations a tax returns distraction?

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Former President Clinton Blasts Romney’s ‘Disappointing’ New Welfare Claim: ‘That Is Not True’

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

Mitt Romney spent Tuesday on a media blitz claiming that President Obama is out to “gut welfare reform.” An ad released by the Romney campaign first pointed to President Clinton as having successfully reformed welfare, before excoriating Obama. However, in a statement, Clinton called Romney’s charge against Obama “disappointing” and “not true”:

Governor Romney released an ad today alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. That is not true. [...]

The recently announced waiver policy was originally requested by the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada to achieve more flexibility in designing programs more likely to work in this challenging environment. The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach. The welfare time limits, another important feature of the 1996 act, will not be waived.

The Romney ad is especially disappointing because, as governor of Massachusetts, he requested changes in the welfare reform laws that could have eliminated time limits altogether. We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads.

In reality, the Obama administration is simply giving states the ability to experiment with new work programs, along the lines of a reform that Romney himself requested in 2005.

As the directive from the Department of Health and Human Services states, “HHS is encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.” HHS says it will cancel waivers that do not further TANF’s goals.

CBS’s AdWatch said of Romney’s ad, “It’s a leap to assume that governors and legislators will seek to return to ‘plain old welfare’ and that the Obama administration will give them the go-ahead.” The Romney camp, however, doubled down on its claims, saying in a statement that Obama is erasing “sixteen years of progress…with one stroke of a pen.”

And none of this deals with the inescapable fact that TANF failed to reach a significant number of needy families during the Great Recession, calling into serious question whether the current program is the best way to administer aid to those who need it.