Last Thursday, the Obama Administration quietly issued new bureaucratic rules that overturned the popular welfare reform law of 1996. This was an illegal move, and it completely undoes years of progress that helped millions of Americans. What Welfare Reform Accomplished The 1996 reform replaced the old Aid to Families with …
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a General Counsel and legal staff to ensure that the agency’s actions are lawful. Did they take the day off last Thursday? We have to question whether the department lawyers were consulted at all about the “Information Memorandum” issued by HHS …
The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the …
Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the reform law. The Obama directive bludgeons the letter and intent of the actual reform …
The farm bill is currently making its way through the Senate amidst heated debate. But don’t let the title fool you. Nearly 80 percent—of the bill’s spending goes toward the nation’s fastest growing welfare program: food stamps. Since 2000, the cost of food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition …
Were we directed from Washingtonwhen to sow, when to reap, we should soon want bread. – Thomas Jefferson The federal government hasn’t stuck its nose into when to plant crops (yet, anyway), butJefferson’s warning is worth remembering as another farm bill chugs through Congress this year. Federal lawmakers are planning, yet again, to …
Despite all the talk of “austerity,” little has been done to stem the tide of the United States’ ever growing debt. The little that has been cut is in area that needs it most: defense. The Budget Control Act’s sequestration hits defense disproportionately and essentially ignores entitlement spending, the leading …
“Provide for common defense” is a core constitutional obligation of the federal government. Yet entitlement spending is putting unsustainable pressure on the defense budget. In 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security constituted 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) while defense made up 7.4 percent. The Office of Management and …
Did you know that President Obama’s “Yes, We Can” Administration has been funding a research project to invent a composite index that measures happiness? Yes, you read right—an aggregate index that aims to compute your happiness, mine, and our nation’s. Everybody wants to be happy, and it might be nice …
