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Ending the Welfare State as We Know It

President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, otherwise known as welfare reform, into law 30 years ago on Aug. 22, 1996. The following is an excerpt from Lee Edwards’ book “The Power of Ideas”. Edwards served as a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation and died in 2024.

In the spring of 1994, President Clinton having done almost nothing to redeem his campaign pledge on welfare, Heritage senior analyst Robert Rector proposed a comprehensive reform of the federal welfare system that would end government subsidization of “self-destructive behavior” and reinforce “moral and cultural renewal.”

It was not just another paper but the culmination of years of thought and study by the veteran expert on welfare and family issues. Rector’s seminal study, running 28 pages and 10,000 words, would serve as a model for future work in the area of cultural policy studies by Patrick Fagan and other Heritage analysts.

Rector........

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