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John Kerry on Welfare Reform
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Let's turn to the Democratic Presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry. Kerry missed the 2003 vote, due to campaigning. Kerry did vote for the final passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform bill. Slate.com reports:
How did Kerry vote? He did vote for the 1996 reform bill on final passage, but in the Kabuki procedures of the Senate, the final passage vote is often for show, and that was the case with welfare reform. The final vote allowed senators who needed to be seen as supportive of the bill--especially senators up for reelection like Kerry--to go on record as voting for it. The actual crucial votes that determined the legislation's fate and shape came earlier, when the spotlight was off--votes on amendments designed to gut the bill, toughen the bill, or substitute an entirely new bill. I do know that Kerrry voted for both major Democratic substitutes to the GOP-supported bill that finally passed--the Daschle substitute and the nominally-bipartisan Biden-Specter substitute--as well as for a defeated Breaux proposal that would have created a non-cash voucher scheme to replace cash welfare when the cash was cut off. (196)
The (conservative) Washington Times wrote an editorial on June 28th 2004 (197):
Like Bill Clinton in recent days, the
liberal Sen. John Kerry has spent the past few years bragging about his support for the historic
1996 welfare-reform bill. But neither is likely to admit that welfare reform, which has proved to be
one of the most successful social-policy legislative acts in U.S. history, comprised a central plank
in Rep. Newt Gingrich's 1994 "Contract With America."
Welfare reform ultimately became law in August 1996, less than three months
before Messrs. Clinton and Kerry faced the voters. At the time, a vast majority of Americans had
become thoroughly disgusted with the self-destructive welfare policy that Democratic liberalism had
embraced for decades, even as its direct consequences of social catastrophe were clear for all to
see. The fact that real welfare reform had finally become law within months of the 1996 election was
hardly coincidental. Mr. Kerry, who had spent years fighting real reform, strongly supported Mr.
Clinton when he vetoed two solid, Republican-initiated welfare-reform plans in late 1995 and early
1996. Because their Republican opponents and voters had rightly understood their opposition to be
little more than liberal obstructionism, the issue was causing Messrs. Clinton and Kerry grief in
their 1996 campaigns for re-election.
Indeed, Mr. Kerry revealed his aggressive hostility to
welfare reform in 1988. Then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole introduced a "workfare"
amendment. The Dole amendment would have required — by 1994, six years later — at least one
parent in a two-parent household receiving welfare to work a minimum of 16 hours per week. By any
standard of toughness, this was a very weak requirement. But it proved to be too draconian for the
liberal standards of Mr. Kerry, who voted against the amendment, which passed with bipartisan
support. During Senate debate, he complained that the 1988 welfare-reform bill "contains
provisions troublesome to me, such as the 16-hour weekly work requirement for two-parent
families." During his 1996 Senate re-election campaign, when his opponent, then-Gov. Bill Weld,
attacked him for his 1988 vote, Mr. Kerry incongruously argued that he opposed the work requirement
for two-parent welfare families because he favored work requirements for single-parent families.
Having voted against the workfare amendment in 1988, Mr. Kerry in 1992
opposed "learnfare," a reform that would have permitted states to withhold welfare
benefits from parents whose children failed to attend school regularly. Two years later, his
hostility to reform continued. After numerous press reports revealed the widespread abuse of
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability payments to alcoholics and drug addicts whose only
disability was their addiction, the public demanded reform. On Sept. 8, 1994, however, Mr. Kerry
introduced two amendments to a Senate welfare-reform bill that would guarantee to continue to
"provide Supplemental Security Income benefits to persons who are disabled by reason of drug or
alcohol abuse."
During the 1995 welfare-reform debate, Mr. Kerry voted against the
"family cap" provision, which would have prohibited states from raising a welfare
recipient's cash benefits for having additional children while collecting welfare. He also voted
against an amendment that would have required most able-bodied, non-elderly food-stamp recipients to
work 10 hours a week. Mr. Kerry eventually voted against the 1995 welfare conference report.
After fighting in 1994 for SSI benefits for crack addicts, in 1996 Mr. Kerry
voted against random drug-testing programs for welfare recipients. He also opposed an amendment with
bipartisan support that would deny welfare benefits to legal immigrants. In yet another vote to
encourage immigrants to go on the dole, he voted to delay for two years a provision that would have
denied Medicaid benefits to immigrants for five years.
After being relentlessly pounded by Mr. Weld [his
Senate opponent for reelection] throughout the first half of 1996 for
voting against two conference reports containing real welfare-reform plans in 1995, Mr. Kerry
reversed years of hostile opposition to welfare reform and finally supported the 1996 bill. By
contributing to his very narrow November victory over Mr. Weld, that vote probably saved Mr. Kerry's
political career. More than anything else, that no doubt explains why he cast it. (197)
From Kerry's website (this is responding to an ad by the Club For Growth accusing him of being wishy washy on Welfare Reform):
That’s Right, Kerry is FOR Welfare Reform When It Puts People Back to Work. In 1996 John Kerry joined a majority of Congress in supporting the Clinton welfare reform bill —their support resulted in remarkable success for the program and for many thousands of Americans. (198)
And Kerry is AGAINST Welfare Cuts When They Hurt Children & Families. John Kerry strongly opposed the Gingrich/Dole plans to slash welfare spending and he voted against measures to force families off food stamps. Kerry voted against the Republican plan to cut welfare spending by $65 billion and opposed the attempts of Jesse Helms and John Ashcroft to take away food stamps from those that need them. Instead, Kerry supported more funding for child care, guaranteed child care for welfare recipients who are required to work and increased funding for job training and job placement. Additionally, Kerry voted for the Moseley Braun Amendment to require states to provide work experience, assistance in finding employment and job training before denying welfare benefits to adults. Finally, in 1995, Kerry joined all but one Democrat in voting against the welfare reform package pushed by Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole which would have devastated thousands of families by ending the entitlement status of Aid to Families with Dependent Children and some related programs and replace them with block grants to the states. Although the drastic cuts in this welfare reform package passed Congress, it was promptly vetoed by President Clinton. (198)
A few things of interest. Notice Kerry calls the plan the 'Clinton Welfare Reform bill'. From Slate and CNN:
Why did Clinton sign? Did he think, as Time reported he said at the time, that it was a "decent welfare bill wrapped in a sack of s---"? Did he trust states to take over welfare because he'd been a governor? How much politics was involved? (199), (200)
I had also thought, from past quotes from Liberals opposing the bill in this paper, that the bill that passed was similar to the two that Clinton vetoed. From sources already cited in this paper:
From Jesse Jackson Jr.: "The Republican plan was basically the same as previous ones already vetoed by President Clinton." (179)
From the July 25th, 1996 New York Times editorial: He stopped his staff from producing a new estimate of the Congressional proposal's impact on children -- an estimate that would surely have shown that the new legislation is only marginally different from the bills he vetoed. (165)
And from the N.O.W notice:
Floor votes are scheduled for this week, with a promise from President Clinton to sign a bill. There is little difference between the welfare bill (H.R.4) which the president vetoed in January and the new plan H.R. 3734/S 1795. (177)
Ending Welfare as We Know It:
Passage of the Dole Welfare Reform Bill in the Senate, with the support of the President and the votes of many Senate Democrats, showed that it was possible to obtain presidential approval for a Republican-orientated welfare reform package significantly more conservative then President Clinton's own 1994 proposal. (109)
The Miller Center:
Two bills reached the President and were vetoed before a compromise bill, put in motion by the National Governor’s Association and acceptable to the President, was passed and signed into law. (108)
Republican Senator Nickles, was asked by a PBS reporter:
MARGARET WARNER: Well, Sen. Nickles, as I think you know,
if you watched the President today, he--he said he’d been completely consistent, there were
certain principles he’d always insisted on in welfare reform, and he took a lot of credit for
essentially making this bill what it is today. Do you think that’s true?
SEN. NICKLES: No. I don’t, Margaret. Frankly, I think if you look at this bill, you look at the bill that passed in the Senate last January, he vetoed a bill, the early part of January this year, he vetoed it late at night, hoping everybody was out of town, trying to almost hide the veto. But the facts are that bill passed with 87 votes in the Senate. This bill is not all that dissimilar from the Senate bill before. I think the difference is we’re talking about election time. (172)
It seems to me, useless speculation, to comment on whether or not any President or Senator did something because of looming elections or political expediency. However, Kerry's campaign statement that it is 'Clinton Welfare Reform bill' seems to me a bit of a stretch, although we can certainly commend Clinton for signing it. It does seem strange that Kerry and Clinton would vote against the first two bills if they were so similar to the last one and then, when the final one passes, laud it as their own accomplishment! [I have read that there was more childcare funding in the final bill than any of the others, and that both Clinton and Kerry cite this as their main reason for their change of heart. At present, I have been unable to find to what extent this was true.] (207)
Clinton returned the favor, saying at the Democratic Convention last month:
The bravery that men who fought by his side in battle, that bravery they saw in battle, I have seen in politics. When I was president, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget, at a time when those priorities were not exactly the way to win a popularity contest in our party. (201)
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