Thirty years ago, in August, Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a new law: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. It was welfare reform, driven in part by Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s aggressive push.
By the mid-1990s, President Clinton himself had acknowledged that “the era of big government is over.”
To address the growing national debt, the president vowed to slash spending.
In July 1996, the House passed the bipartisan Personal Responsibility Act by a vote of 256 to 170. It then went through the Senate, 74 to 24.
In August, President Clinton signed the legislation. The bill ended financial support to those who refused to work. It required welfare recipients to find employment within two years of receiving assistance, unless they had some medical problems; the law imposed a five-year lifetime limit on federal aid.
It barred many legal migrants from obtaining benefits. The act also increased funds for child care and medical coverage. The bill had an immediate impact.
The number of Americans receiving cash assistance dropped by 50 percent. The unemployment rate for single mothers rose from 44 percent to 66 percent more moms had jobs.
In total, Bill Clinton’s reform reduced federal spending by 54 billion dollars over the first five years. Bill Clinton deserved a lot of credit. It was a time when our politicians worked together.
Although the law remains in effect, progressive politicians have mostly bypassed it. Today, states administer most aid, but they get the money from the feds. So we’re all paying for entitlements. In 1997, D.C. doled out 800 billion dollars for entitlement programs last year. That figure exploded to 4 trillion.