StuartW has on a few
StuartW has on a few occasions defended Chomsky’s lesser evil option by arguing that according to Chomsky, Democratic administrations have been more beneficial to the working class than the Republicans. I asked for some references for Chomsky’s conclusion but Stuart has not yet replied. Chomsky has made a judgment call, but it doesn’t make it or him infallible. In 1996, Peter Edelman resigned from his post as assistant secretary of Health and Human Services to protest the welfare reform the Democrat Clinton administration had just enacted. At the time, Edelman told his staff: “I have devoted the last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the opposite direction.” The old program dates from the New Deal; it gave states unlimited matching funds and offered poor families extensive rights, with few requirements and no time limits. The new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, created time limits and work rules, capped federal spending and allowed states to turn poor families away. Many people found the system more hassle than help, a gauntlet of job-search classes where absences can be punished by a complete loss of aid. Some states explicitly pursue a policy of deterrence to make sure people use the program only as a last resort. Some states took new steps to keep the needy away. They shortened time limits, tightened eligibility rules and reduced benefits (to an average of about $350 a month for a family of three). Since 2007, 11 states have cut the rolls by 10 percent or more. They include centers of unemployment like Georgia, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Michigan. Arizona cut benefits by 20 percent and shortened time limits twice — to two years, from five. “My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,” said Peter B. Edelman, now a law professor at Georgetown University “It’s been even worse than I thought it would be.” recently re-stated in the New York Times. Liberal critics had warned that its mix of time limits and work rules would create mass destitution — “children sleeping on the grates,” in the words of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat. Recent studies have found that as many as one in every four low-income single mothers is jobless and without cash aid — roughly four million women and children. Just one in five poor children now receives cash aid, the lowest level in nearly 50 years. Paul Ryan, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.” Mitt Romney said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.” Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation. Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, who helped draft the 1996 law as an aide to House Republicans and argues that it has worked well.Obama spoke favorably of the program in his 2008 campaign — promoting his role as a state legislator in cutting the Illinois welfare rolls.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/welfare-limits-left-poor-adrift-as-recession-hit.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=Peter%20Edelman&st=cse&scp=1 As I say, I require proof from Chomsky that the Democrats, in contrast to the Republicans, deserve to be favoured by workers in the approaching election. But, of course, we can all cherry-pick our facts – me, included ! As an aside, even if we are generous and accept that it was just a bad call in the drafting of the welfare legislation, it still confirms that well-meaning politicians and their well-intended palliatives often do not have the desired effect and can sometimes back-fire with new additional problems – yet another confirmation of what the SPGB has often pointed out in the past in its case against reformism and the political parties that promote it.