General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Let's be honest....nothing progressive can happen under HRC as president. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And the "hard work" he was referring to was the hard work society would have to do to make the economy inclusive-Bobby wasn't saying the poor were lazy, for God's sakes.
Those who opposed the welfare "reform" bill have never said that people should just stay on welfare, and those on welfare haven't wanted that either.
Nobody was saying "just keep things as they are".
The problem is, the welfare reform bill didn't create jobs for people who were being kicked off of welfare-it just threw them to the wolves. It was based on the classist(and to some degree racist, because Republicans like to pretend that all people on welfare are black-the truth is, most are white and that this has always been the case)notion that people receiving welfare COULD have found wor, anytime they wanted to, but were just lazy...also on the lie that welfare was a gravy train, when in truth it has always largely been a near-useless pittance.
The way to get people off of welfare is to create jobs, through public works programs rebuilding impoverished areas so that the people who actually live in them would actually get a chance to get real work and real jobs skills making their neighborhoods better-NOT on doing what was actually done and saying, in effect "just go roam the country looking for jobs that pay you crumbs."
And the other thing would have been either to create a real healthcare program in this country(most people on welfare only stayed on it because they'd lose any chance of healthcare coverage for their kids if they didn't)or, at least, let people keep the health coverage they had on welfare for the first couple of years of employment.
And the great irony is, the kind of jobs YOU probably think of as what people on welfare should be doing...fast food jobs...often pay so little that people who take them on are still eligible for benefits.
So, no, Bobby Kennedy would NOT be down with what was done in 1996, because Bobby NEVER believed that people on the dole should be punished just for having taken benefits. Bobby never judged the poor morally, because he recognized that, as a person of privilege, he had no right to. It would be nice if, as a person of at least some privilege, you'd do the same.
You get people off of benefits by creating REAL jobs and real, viable economies in the neighborhoods where they live...not by telling them to work at McDonald's or WalMart.