1 gen 1996 anni - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconcilliation Act reforms welfare system

Descrizione:

contract with america:Initiatives by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia for significant tax cuts, reductions in welfare programs, anticrime measures, and cutbacks in federal regulations
personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act: Legislation signed by President Clinton in 1996 that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which provided grants to the states to assist the poor, and limited allowable welfare payments.

Clinton’s victory in the 1992 presidential race did not reflect a major electoral realignment. Conservatives still had a working majority, and it had taken Perot’s insurgency and a recession to open the door for the Democrats. The midterm elections of 1994 unmistakably confirmed that majority. In a well-organized campaign, dominated by grassroots appeals to the New Right, Republicans gained fifty-four seats in the House of Representatives, giving them a majority in the lower chamber for the first time since 1955. They also retook control of the Senate and captured eleven governorships. Leading the Republican charge was Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who revived calls for significant tax cuts, reductions in welfare programs, anticrime initiatives, and cutbacks in federal regulations—initiatives that Gingrich promoted under the banner of a “ Contract with America.”

In response to the massive loss of Democratic congressional seats in the 1994 midterm elections, Clinton moved to the right. Claiming in 1996 that “the era of big government is over,” he avoided expansive social-welfare proposals for the remainder of his presidency and instead sought Republican support for a centrist program. The signature initiative of his remaining time in office was reforming the welfare system, a measure that saved relatively little money but carried a big ideological message. Many taxpaying Americans believed that the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program encouraged female recipients to remain on welfare rather than seek employment. In August 1996, the federal government abolished AFDC, achieving a long-standing goal of conservatives when Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, over the furious objections of liberals.

A photo shows president Bill Clinton having a conversation with politicians; a sign on his podium reads, “A New Beginning, Welfare to Work.”
Bill Clinton

President William (Bill) Clinton returned the Democratic Party to the White House after twelve years under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Clinton was best known politically for what he called the third way, a phrase that described his efforts to craft policies that appealed to both liberals and moderates in his party. Here he signs the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 (officially the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), which brought an end to the federal AFDC program that Democrats had created in 1935.

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