Obama Shifts on Welfare Reform July 01, 2008 12:19 AM
ABC News' Teddy Davis and Gregory Wallace Report: Barack Obama aligned himself with welfare reform on Monday, launching a television ad which touts the way the overhaul "slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Obama leaves out, however, that he was against the 1996 federal legislation which precipitated the caseload reduction.
"I am not a defender of the status quo with respect to welfare," Obama said on the floor of the Illinois state Senate on May 31, 1997. "Having said that, I probably would not have supported the federal legislation, because I think it had some problems."
Obama's transformation from opponent to champion of welfare reform is the latest in a series of moves to the center. Since capturing the Democratic nomination, Obama has altered his stances on Social Security taxes, meeting with rogue leaders without preconditions, and the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s, sweeping gun ban.
The shift in Obama's rhetoric on welfare reform has proceeded in stages. When Clinton was poised to sign welfare reform while running for re-election in 1996, Obama called it "disturbing." A decade later, as an underdog running for president against Clinton's wife, he spent 2007 avoiding the subject. By the time Obama emerged as the Democratic frontrunner in the spring of 2008, he began leaving the impression that he was for it all along.
During a 1996 interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Obama could not conceal his disappointment in his fellow Democrat. "Bill Clinton? Well, his campaign’s fascinating to a student of politics. It's disturbing to someone who cares about certain issues. But politically, it seems to be working," said Obama.
When implementation of welfare reform came before the Illinois state senate in 1997, Obama cited a lack of job training, insufficient oversight, and provisions blocking legal immigrants from receiving benefits as his reasons for opposing a federal welfare overhaul imposing work requirements and time limits.
While campaigning for president in 2007, Obama refused on two occasions to say if he would have signed the same welfare-reform bill approved by the husband of his top rival.
After addressing the International Association of Firefighters on March 14, 2007, Obama told ABC News, "I tend not to look back to what would have been done 10 years ago. We’re talking about what I’m going to be doing for the next 10 years."
When ABC News posed the same question four months later, Obama again refused to answer.
"I’m not going to re-litigate what happened back in the 90s," said Obama at a July 17, 2007, press conference in Washington, D.C. "I'm talking about what's going to be happening going forward."
"Bill Clinton isn't on the ballot," he added.
Once he had become the Democratic frontrunner in the spring of 2008, Obama signaled that he had always backed the 1996 welfare reform.
Asked if he would have vetoed the reform measure, Obama told The New York Times in a story published on April 11, "I won’t second guess President Clinton for signing."
Now, with the Democratic nomination firmly in hand, Obama is going one step further. In an ad airing in 18 states, including 14 carried by President Bush in 2004, Obama is celebrating a reduction in the welfare caseload made possible by legislation he originally opposed.
Watch the ad. <http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/dignity_ad>
By glossing over his early opposition to welfare reform, Obama is stepping closer to the political mainstream. But by undergoing this transformation only once it became politically convenient, Obama’s critics will charge that he puts calculation ahead of conviction.