As Neil Munro reported, “The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the controversial July 12 rule that allow states to opt out of the successful, bipartisan and popular 1996 welfare reform law that required people on welfare to also work to maintain those benefits.”
But when Rick Warren asked Obama at the 2008 Saddleback Debate if there were an issue he had changed his mind about, Obama seemed to signal he now supported President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform law, saying:
I always believed that welfare had to be changed. I was much more concerned ten years ago when President Clinton initially signed the bill that this could have disastrous results …
… It worked better than I think a lot of people anticipated. And one of the things that I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to have work as a centerpiece of any social policy. Not only because, ultimately people who work are going to get more income. But the intrinsic dignity of work, uh, the sense of purpose.
… We were made for work … and the sense that you are part of a community, because you’re making a contribution.