There is concern that the stimulus bill just passed by Congress will undue the progress made by the 1996 Welfare Reform bill.  In 10 years, the number of families on the welfare rolls was reduced from 5 million to 2 million.  Now, it looks like those gains are in danger of being reversed.  Here are some interesting excerpts form the article below:

Rector, a senior scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, argued that Obama’s spending proposals in effect encouraged individual states to add more families to their welfare rolls; the more Americans sign on to the dole, the more state budgets will benefit from US Treasury payouts.

“They have completely overturned the fiscal and policy foundations of welfare reform,” Rector complained.


While some scholars are beginning to suspect that Clinton’s welfare reforms were fatally flawed – or at least viable only during an economic boom – Republicans are not alone in fearing that Obama’s hastily concocted package is the first step towards the creation of a quasi-socialist welfare state. 


     A "quasi-socialist welfare state".  I think that just about sums up Barack Obama and the Democrats.  We are going to experience a massive expansion in government spending while Barack Obama is President.  The only glimmer of hope is the 2010 mid-term elections.  Hopefully, more Americans will wake up and realize how the government is being fundamentally changed for the worse.  Unfortunately, they won't see this in the main stream media.

     The article below is a must read.  While I was reading it, I was surprised that an article was finally written that addressed the problems with the stimulus, along with the missteps of the Obama administration.  Then I realized I was reading an article from a British newspaper.  This is also the same newspaper that broke the story about Barack Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, being an illegal alien.  They also expressed surprise that the U.S. media didn't find out first.  I guess the mainstream media isn't in a hurry to write anything but a glossed over account of Barack Obama's performance. 

     The original purpose of this post was to focus on the welfare aspect, but I felt I had to provide a critique of U.S. media coverage.  It's a shame when we need to look to foreign newspapers for balanced coverage of our own government.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5733499.ece