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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Sept. 15, 2006 / 22 Elul 5766

Clinton got it right on welfare reform

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Lillie Harden was a 32-year-old mother of three from Little Rock, Ark., when Bill Clinton met her at a governors' panel on reforming welfare in 1986. Harden had collected welfare for two years before finding work and had come to speak about her experience. Clinton asked her what was best about being off welfare. Her reply: "When my boy goes to school and they say, 'What does your mama do for a living?' he can give an answer."


Ten years later, when Clinton was in the White House, he invited Harden to join him as he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 — welfare reform — into law. In his remarks, Clinton recalled her answer of a decade earlier, and added: "I have never forgotten that."


For all that Clinton got wrong, welfare reform was one thing he ended up getting very right. He had vetoed two previous reform bills passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, and when the House and Senate came back with a third bill, liberal pressure for another veto was intense. But political strategist Dick Morris warned Clinton that a third veto could cost him the 1996 election, and so, pronouncing it a "historic opportunity to do what is right," he signed the bill.


The chorus of outrage from the left was deafening. Marian Wright Edelman, chairman of the Children's Defense Fund, warned that Clinton's signature would "leave a moral blot on his presidency and on our nation." Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont denounced the bill as "anti-family, anti child, and mean-spirited." Hugh Price, head of the National Urban League, declared that "Washington has decided to end the War on Poverty and begin a war on children." Ted Kennedy labeled the new law "legislative child abuse." Daniel Patrick Moynihan went so far as to call it "the most brutal act of social policy we have known since Reconstruction."


Over and over it was said that welfare reform would wreak social devastation, throwing vast numbers of people, including a million children, into poverty.


Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey fretted that poor children would be reduced to "begging for money, begging for food, and even . . . engaging in prostitution." Peter Edelman, the husband of Marian Wright Edelman and an assistant secretary of health and human services, resigned in protest and condemned the new law in a long article — "The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done" — in The Atlantic. It predicted, among other things, "more malnutrition and more crime, increased infant mortality, and increased drug and alcohol abuse . . . increased family violence and abuse against children and women." All in all, he concluded, this "terrible legislation" would do "serious injury to American children."


It did none of those things.


What it did do was end the condescending attitude that the poor were incapable of improving their situation, and that "compassion" consisted of supplying money indefinitely to women who had children, but no husbands or jobs. That approach had lured millions into lives of dependency, subsidized an explosion of fatherlessness, and infected whole neighborhoods with a bias against work and marriage. The bill that Clinton signed replaced that deadly condescension with respect. For the first time, welfare would come with strings attached: work requirements and time limits designed to encourage responsibility and self-sufficiency.


The results speak for themselves. Since peaking in 1994, the nation's welfare caseload plummeted by 60 percent, falling from 5 million families to fewer than 2 million. Welfare recipients went to work in droves. The employment rate among those who had been likeliest to slip into long-term dependence — young mothers who had never been married — soared by nearly 100 percent. And as more and more mothers left welfare and got jobs, more and more of their children were lifted out of poverty.


Far from throwing a million kids into the streets, welfare reform sent the child poverty rate tumbling, from 20.8 percent in 1995 to 17.8 percent in 2004. In black communities, where welfare had done the most damage, the decline was even more dramatic. "Black child poverty plummeted at an unprecedented rate, falling to 30.0 percent in 2001," Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation recently testified before Congress. "In 2001, despite the recession, the poverty rate for black children was at the lowest point in national history."


Not everything has been reformed. There is clearly more work to do. The 1996 law affected only the basic welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). But dozens of other welfare entitlements, such as food stamps and Medicaid, still operate under the old rules. And while the out-of-wedlock birth rate is no longer skyrocketing, it is still far too high — as are the poverty and social chaos it begets.


But there is no disputing that welfare reform has been a shining success. Ten years later, it is clear that the Republican Congress that passed the law and the Democratic president who signed it turned out to be truer champions of the poor than those who inveighed against it so hysterically.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

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