One of Bill Clinton's greatest accomplishments during his Presidency was welfare reform. Before President Clinton and Newt Gingrich worked together to pass the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in 1996, people could work the system and be eligible for welfare checks for their entire lives. Instead, the new bipartisan bill created TANF or temporary assistance for needy families.
Under TANF there is only a 60 months of welfare benefits within one's lifetime (some states instituted shorter periods) and there is a component requiring clients to attempt to find employment. These requirements have led to massive drops in the number of people receiving welfare. The act's goal was to get people off the temporary assistance, by encouraging people to work. It was a great success.
For all of Bill Clinton's flaws, he should be praised for bringing us TANF. But, despite all the gains achieved from the reform, Barack Obama will essentially bring back the welfare of old via his Trojan Horse tax plan, and nobody is talking about it.
Before one understands the difference between Barack Obama's and John McCain's tax plan, one must understand the difference between a tax cut and a subsidy. A tax cut is when someone makes money and the government allows that person to keep more of the money that was earned by that individual. A subsidy is when the government takes from one person to give to someone else. Many people in the mainstream media use the terms interchangeably, even though there are major differences between the two.
Presently, the bottom 40% of income earners pay zero income taxes. The top 20% pay 80% of all the federal income taxes. Therefore, it is not possible to give the bottom 40% a tax cut because they pay no money to the government. So this begs the question: How is Barack Obama proposing to give a tax cut to 95% of Americans?
The truth is that he is not going to give a tax cut to most Americans; it is not possible. Instead, he is going to give a subsidy to the bottom 40%. Sadly, the mainstream media does not know the difference so they claim that Obama is telling the truth. In fact, it is very likely that Obama does not understand the distinction either.
See the chart below for a breakdown from the Washington Post. The chart makes it seem that the bottom will get a better tax savings under Obama. No, they are just getting a welfare check.
So why is this such an important distinction?
If the bottom 40% receive a check in the mail without working, that is essentially removing TANF via Barack Obama's backdoor tax plan. The only eligibility requirements to get a check from the government according to Barack Obama's plan is to be in the bottom percentage of income earners. There are no other requirements.
The worst aspect of it all, is that those people will lose their government checks if they decided to work longer hours, find higher paying employment, or get promoted. Talk about turning Bill Clinton's welfare reform on its head.
In fact, one can call Barack Obama's plan exactly what it is, wealth redistribution, also known as Socialism.
(image source)
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