Have Republicans gone weak on work?
In 1996 a Republican Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a bipartisan bill imposing a work requirement of 30 hours a week for households with at least one working-age parent and 35 hours a week for households with two parents as a condition for receiving benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Today, inflation-adjusted federal welfare spending is 2.7 times its 1996 level, the budget deficit is nine times as high, and the federal debt is four times as large. Polling data show unprecedented support for work requirements. Yet the welfare reform in the House reconciliation bill, which is now pending in the Senate, merely requires 20 hours a week as a condition for able-bodied working-age adults with no dependents to receive Medicaid and expands the current 30-hour requirement of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to more beneficiaries. Why are these GOP work requirements weaker than those a Democratic president backed?
Though almost 80% of 2024 Trump voters support more work requirements for childless, able-bodied adult Medicaid recipients, GOP representatives from competitive districts seem to believe that since more low- and moderate-income Americans are voting for their party, Republicans should be generous with benefits. But it seems unlikely that welfare recipients opposed to work requirements would have voted for the GOP in the first place. And there’s no way Republicans can hold on to voters seeking handouts in the long term. Democrats always win a spending race.
Read this article, co-authored by Phil Gramm, in The Wall Street Journal.