THE EDITOR'S COLUMN: Obama hacks away at America's foundation
Barack Obama’s out of control presidency plunged deeper into outlaw territory this past week.
Obama’s lawless band gutted the nation’s successful 1996 welfare reform law by issuing a bureaucratic directive that (illegally) does away with the work requirement at the heart of the bipartisan reform adopted under Bill Clinton’s presidency.
The directive, issued by Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services, allows states to waive the work requirement to receive welfare. But the reform law clearly does not allow for that specific waiver, according to Robert Rector of the conservative Heritage Foundation, who helped draft the 1996 reform.
Before welfare reform, Rector noted, “state bureaucrats ... attempted to define activities such as hula dancing, attending Weight Watchers and bed rest as ‘work’ ... now that the Obama Administration has abolished those standards, we can expect ‘work’ in the TANF program to mean anything but work.” TANF, or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, is the name for welfare.
Administration officials contend that the new directive comes in response to states’ concerns. They insist that finding employment will be encouraged, but they will allow more flexible alternative approaches, and benefits are still time-limited. One news report said that suggested alternatives could include “combining learning and work” or recognizing “vocational educational training or job search/readiness programs” for the work requirement.
Given the slippery use of language by the Obama Administration (it’s a penalty, it’s a tax), one might wonder if a “job search/readiness program” might even include going door to door campaigning for Obama — to build interpersonal communications skills, of course — through some flimflam organization allied with the Obama-Biden campaign. After all, Michelle Obama recently urged campaign supporters to “multiply yourselves” to get out the vote. Anybody see the reincarnation of ACORN yet? Keep an eye on those alternative approaches.
It will be interesting to see how this illegal welfare directive plays out; especially, since Health and Human Services was last heard telling America’s Catholic institutions to get in line with Obamacare even though it violates their most deeply held religious convictions and their constitutional freedom of religion.
Law is losing its meaning in America, until now a nation of laws. It seems the law only means whatever President Obama and those in his sway say it means, even if the text reads otherwise.
Another horrendous example of that is how previously conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts somehow underwent a brain transplant and approved Obamacare, only by declaring it to be a tax, not a penalty, even though the word “tax” is nowhere in the legislation.
Rewriting laws without the involvement of Congressional lawmakers is clearly not constitutional, nor legal, but that seems to matter little to the Obama crew. What else can you expect from an administration that illegally gave thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels so the Obama crew could then try to claim that a flood of American guns in Mexico (the Fast and Furious Obama guns) requires more gun restrictions on law-abiding American citizens.
http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2012/07/15/opinion/doc50023925790e9045084661.txt?viewmode=fullstory&webredirect=false&refresh=no
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