Who started the class war? Not us says Obama and Romney

Mittens is accusing President Obama of destroying welfare. Yeah, I know, it makes no sense, but hear him out.

In an effort to win the Presidency, Mitt Romney has launched a campaign to warm up the middle class and keep the wealthy in his pocket. This can be tricky given how wary the middle class has been of the wealthy. So how do you do it? Hate on the poor. Everyone beats up on the poor, after all if you don't you might become one. This irrational fear keeps the middle class (the stratified middle class) from joining the poor in the streets and launching a full on confrontation with the power holders i.e. corporations and politicians. Poverty sympathizers, fools.

According to Mittens, Obama has gutted the welfare reform pioneered by Clinton in the 1990s, which created peace and good will among welfare recipients and definitely wasn't an appeasement to the wealthy and middle class who were feed this idea of the welfare queen. It didn't force people into low-wage, low-skill employment that provided a standard of living under the poverty line...oh wait. It did.

Mittens is accusing Obama of granting new flexibility to state welfare programs, such as empower low-income recipients to collect government checks without working or looking for work.

"Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check." Romney asserts, he "will restore the work requirement."

Naturally, this is supposed to scare white blue-collar voters into voting Mittens 2012 (because you know welfare is for brown people?). Obama is painted as the big government solutions guy who aims to fix the economy at the expense of personal responsibility and job creation. Mittens is the self responsibility guy, teach people that welfare isn't for free, you have to work, end the culture of dependency in America, etc (I'm sure there is a Jesus myth about fish that should go here). Mittens sees this as some kind of great accomplishment. Just a reminder the original legislation and law lacked any discussions of a fair wage or even a minimum wage. Yep, sounds like something Mittens would be proud of.

Obama's plan is actually a Republican argument, which was to increased state flexibility to avoid healthcare reform. Additionally, Mitten's amnesia struck again, having pushed for something similar in Massachusetts. Someone get this man to a doctor.

A member of the Obama camp, Lis Smith says that Mittens is flat out lying. Smith says:

"The truth is that the President is giving states additional flexibility only if they move more people from welfare to work--not fewer. By falsely attacking a policy that both he and his Republican allies have supported for years, Romney is once again flip flopping on a position he took in Massachusetts, and demonstrating that he lacks the core strength and principles the nation needs in a President." 

The issue surrounds a memo issued last month by HHS offering TANF waivers to states that want to try alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures to improve employment outcomes for needy families. Those lazy commie bastards, are you reading this "improve employment outcomes"? HHS included a list of sample projects that might be of interest to states.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (Mich.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) of the Senate Finance Committee, who are blocking any administrative move to waive the workforce requirements, are pissed.  Hatch says:

"Gutting welfare work requirements with a stroke of a pen and without congressional input is simply unacceptable and cannot be allowed to stand."

Democrats have been speaking out too, Rep. Sandy Levin (Mich.) of the Ways and Means panel, says the HHS waivers do nothing to change funding levels or extend the length of benefits:

"The only change is states are allowed to focus on outcomes, rather than on process and paperwork. Republicans used to support state flexibility, but now they seem to think Washington knows best."

Burn. So to be clear, no one actually cares about welfare recipients, just how they can spin this to help in an election, and both Obama and Mittens are pro-big government in one way or another.

Once again we're reminded that the goals of TANF are not to help people, but instead to get them off welfare rolls and into low-wage employment to benefit the corporations and out of the public's line of sight.