The history of this page
This page, formerly appearing on Part 2b of this series, is about Democrats who have publicly disagreed with the party for various reasons.A new section was added to this page on July 11, 2018. It's about Democrats in the Senate who want to be reelected even though they represent states that were won by presidential candidate Donald Trump in November 2016.
In August 2018, I added a lot of material about centrists and moderates within the Democrat Party. This was later moved to a new page which was published on the 17th of August. I also moved the section titled "Blue Dog Democrats are making a comeback."
Introduction
Some of the Democrats who disagree with their party, including the group referred to below as Blue Dog Democrats, are economic moderates at a time when a majority of the members of their party are actively advocating for socialism.
In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Supreme Court announced for the first time the principle that a court may declare an act of Congress void if it is inconsistent with the Constitution. William Marbury had been appointed a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia in the final hours of the Adams administration. When James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of state, refused to deliver Marbury’s commission, Marbury, joined by three other similarly situated appointees, petitioned for a writ of mandamus compelling delivery of the commissions.It is shocking, but some Democrats disagree with this unanimous Supreme Court decision. They say that the Constitution is not a legally-binding document. Their reason is that the men who drafted it and ratified it 1789 had character flaws. These Democrats are assuming that they themselves do not have any character flaws.
Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for a unanimous Court, denied the petition and refused to issue the writ. Although he found that the petitioners were entitled to their commissions, he held that the Constitution did not give the Supreme Court the power to issue writs of mandamus. Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 provided that such writs might be issued, but that section of the act was inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid.
Although the immediate effect of the decision was to deny power to the Court, its long-run effect has been to increase the Court’s power by establishing the rule that ‘it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ Since Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court has been the final arbiter of the constitutionality of congressional legislation.
This is the first explanatory paragraph of this law, on the the website of the Encyclopedia Britannica. All of these links were on their page.
Marbury v. Madison, legal case in which, on February 24, 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court first declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, thus establishing the doctrine of judicial review. The court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, is considered one of the foundations of U.S. constitutional law.Link to a similar page on the website of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Link to a similar page on the website of C-Span. This page includes a video interview.
These Democrats are also assuming that none of the men who were alive in 1789 asked for guidance from a wise and loving God. They are desperately trying to forget the fact that many of the men who were responsible for the creation and ratification of the Constitution did believe in God and did often ask for his guidance.
Link to an October 2017 article about two very different rulings by two U.S. Circuit Courts on the issue of invocations at public meetings.
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The Blue Dog Democrats
These are the first two paragraphs of the self-description of the website of the Blue Dog Political Action Committee.The Blue Dog Coalition was created in 1995 to represent the commonsense, moderate voice of the Democratic Party, appealing to mainstream American values. The Blue Dogs are leaders in Congress who are committed to pursuing fiscally-responsible policies, ensuring a strong national defense, and transcending party lines to do what’s best for the American people.
The name “Blue Dog” was inspired by the famous Blue Dog paintings by Cajun artist George Rodrigue. The term is also based on the long-time tradition of referring to a strong Democratic Party supporter as being a “Yellow Dog Democrat,” who would have “sooner voted for a yellow dog than a Republican.” The founding members of the Blue Dogs said they felt that they had been “choked blue” by the extremes of both political parties, leading to the Coalition’s name.
There’s been a lot of talk about the prominent role that moderate or even conservative Democratic candidates played in upending the Republican majority on Capitol Hill. It’s based on an underlying reality, but spin-meisters, wishful thinkers, and journalists looking for a news hook may have stretched that reality to the breaking point. Conservatives would do well to take a sober look at the Democratic centrists in congress both new and old, especially if they hope these centrists will provide votes for conservative legislation.As stated in Part 2b of this series, there are always some Democrats whose political and economic views are close to the political and economic center. This will always give them some political power. These are the second and third sentences in the second paragraph of the previous story, without the links.
First, the numbers. As of this writing, there has been a 29-seat Democratic gain in the U.S. House. Of those, 18 Democratic freshmen, by my count, were endorsed and actively aided by at least one of two centrist groups: the Blue Dog Democrats and the New Democrat Coalition. A half-dozen were supported by both coalitions, including newly elected Rep. Heath Shuler in North Carolina (who has become something of a national brand name for the 2006 Democratic class, giving some of us Tar Heels a chuckle, since we recall that Shuler had considered a run for public office as a Republican not so long ago).
These two groups, though both centrist, are far from identical. The Blue Dogs were formed first, just after the 1994 Republican victories. Founded by Democrats primarily in the South, Midwest, and inner West, the group argued that reflexive liberalism on social issues and an appearance of fiscal imprudence had damaged the party’s national prospects, as well as the prospects of Democratic candidates in swing districts. The name was invented before the advent of the media convention to label Republicans red and Democrats blue. It is a riff on the old saying that some Democrats were so loyal they would vote for a yellow dog as long as it had a “D” beside its name. The founding members of the Blue Dog Democrats complained that liberalism had choked their kind blue. Before Election Day, there were 37 Blue Dogs. In January, there will be at least 44.
"As of this writing, there has been a 29-seat Democratic gain in the U.S. House. Of those, 18 Democratic freshmen, by my count, were endorsed and actively aided by at least one of two centrist groups: the Blue Dog Democrats and the New Democrat Coalition."
This is the first paragraph of a July 28, 2009 Time Magazine story.
Every political coalition needs a catchy name. The 1840s had the Know-Nothings, the 1980s had the Boll Weevils, and now there are the Blue Dogs, a group of 52 fiscally conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives whose staunch resistance to the White House's health-care legislation efforts might delay a vote well past President Obama's August deadline.
These are the first six paragraphs of an April 17, 2012 Politico story. The links in these paragraphs were in their story.Just when the Blue Dogs thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
Two years after the 2010 midterm elections decimated their ranks, the coalition of conservative Democrats is poised to get pummeled again in November — moving the Blue Dogs dangerously close to extinction.
Of the 24 remaining Blue Dogs, five are not seeking reelection. More than a half-dozen others are facing treacherous contests in which their reelection hopes are in jeopardy.
It’s a rough time to occupy the right wing of the Democratic Party.
“It’s a tough environment out there,” said former Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, a longtime member of the House Blue Dog Coalition. “Their numbers are down. Redistricting has not been kind to them.”
Cramer nailed it: Redistricting is at the root of the Blue Dog problem. The once-in-a-decade line-drawing has forced some of them to compete for seats that have become even less friendly to Democrats — and those seats weren’t very friendly to begin with. Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, Georgia Rep. John Barrow and North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre are among those who have been thrust into deeply Republican territory after being targeted in GOP-led redistricting efforts in their home states.
These are the first five paragraphs of a July 31, 2017 Politico story. The link in the first paragraph was in their story.
Blue Dogs are often dismissed as a dying breed of Democrat. Fiscally conservative, socially moderate and built from the ashes of former Dixiecrats, Blue Dogs have struggled in recent years to find a home in the Democratic Party. Not to mention, they’ve suffered staggering blows to membership. After the 2010 midterm elections, they lost more than half their members, and now, with only 18 members, they still haven’t fully recovered.This article included a link to an article published on this website one week earlier, titled Blue Dogs eye comeback in 2018. The reason why they believe that they will increase their political power is because their political and economic beliefs are not far from the political center.
But in the wake of the 2016 election, Blue Dogs have rediscovered their bark — and are clamoring for a larger voice in the Democratic Party. Right now, less than 10 percent of House Democrats are Blue Dogs — but they’re an increasingly important minority in conservative areas of the country where Democrats have lost ground. They might even help Democrats regain a House majority in 2018.
CHICAGO—Veteran Rep. Dan Lipinksi defeated a well-funded primary challenger, heading off a push by abortion rights groups and other left-leaning advocacy organizations looking to unseat one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress.Link to a similar story, published the next day in the Washington Examiner.
Marie Newman, a first-time candidate who also had the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, gave Lipinski the toughest challenge he’s seen in his eight runs for Congress.
On Wednesday morning, facing a 1600-vote deficit with 97% of votes counted, Newman conceded the race to Lipinski.
"After reviewing the results, we know that we lost by a thin margin," Newman said in a statement. "It was a good fight and I am so proud of the grassroots movement we built with hundreds of volunteers and partners all over the district."
The race garnered national attention as the progressive wing within the Democratic Party pushed for a more liberal and diverse cadre of candidates for November's general election.
The Congressional District that is named in the previous U.S.A. Today story voted for a moderate Democrat instead of a far-left Democrat. Even if this Democrat gets more votes than the Republican in the November election, the country will still be better off with someone who doesn't believe in Socialist economics and Marxist politics. I said the same thing in an October 2014 essay on a different blog called Presidential Standards which included the graphic below.
Blue Dog Democrats have their own standards
This section was added December 17, 2019.These are the first six paragraphs of a December 17, 2019 story in The Hill. The links in these paragraphs were in their story.
Members of the Blue Dog Coalition voted on Tuesday to remove freshman Rep. Jefferson Van Drew (D-N.J.) from the centrist Democrat group, following news he plans to switch parties in coming days.This is the last quoted paragraph, which is only one sentence.
Reports that Van Drew, a vocal opponent of impeachment, was leaving the Democratic Party broke over the weekend, sparking blowback from members of the caucus.
“Today, the members of the Blue Dog Coalition voted to rescind Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s (D-N.J.) membership to the Coalition indefinitely,” a senior aide to the Blue Dog Coalition said.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), co-chairwoman for administration of the Blue Dog Coalition, noted that members of the group are required to be Democrats.
“Per our bylaws, which require all members to be a member of the Democratic Party, Congressman Van Drew is no longer a member of the Blue Dog Coalition,” she said in a statement.
Van Drew declined to confirm his plans to switch parties to reporters on Tuesday.
"Van Drew declined to confirm his plans to switch parties to reporters on Tuesday."
That means that this Congressman has not broken the bylaws of this group. This story also highlights the moderate status of this group. They are closer to the political center than most of the 2019 presidential candidates, all of whom were willing to give healthcare benefits to "undocumented immigrants".
The headline of a July 9, 2019 Los Angeles Times story was "Are Democrats helping Trump by promising healthcare to undocumented migrants?" That story included the following photo of the top five presidential candidates.
These were the first two paragraphs of that story.
With a sharp left turn, Democrats are risking a backlash on an issue of raw emotional and political sensitivity: providing government healthcare to millions of people in the country illegally.Every presidential candidate who raised his hand during that debate, which featured half of the field, due to the limited amount of physical space on the stage, is further away from the political center than the Blue Dog Democrats, yet the Blue Dog group is willing to evict a man who hasn't even changed parties yet. Just because he said that he wants to change parties, that was enough reason to kick him out. He and his truly moderate point of view will be welcomed into the Republican Party, which truly is a "big-tent" party.
Ten of the party’s roughly two dozen presidential candidates stood on a debate stage last month and, without hesitation, raised their hands pledging themselves to the policy shift. Most others in the field have also expressed their support.
Democrats who want to be reelected in Republican states
This section was added July 11, 2018. The stories in this section are arranged in chronological order, oldest first.
When Democrats think about their party’s problems on the political map, they tend to think of President Trump’s ability to win the White House despite losing the popular vote and Republicans’ potent efforts to gerrymander congressional districts. But their problems extend beyond the Electoral College and the House: The Senate hasn’t had such a strong pro-GOP bias since the ratification of direct Senate elections in 1913.The previous story in 538 was quoted by this August 12, 2017 story in Axios, which includes an interesting graphic showing 10 Democrat Senators and only one Republican Senator who represent states whose opposing presidential candidate won that state in November 2016. According to the graphic, the two Democrat Senators who are in the worst trouble are Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Presidential candidate Donald Trump had a 36% victory margin in North Dakota and.a 42% victory margin in West Virginia.
Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points — a pretty good midterm by historical standards — they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats.
This is partly attributable to the nature of House districts: GOP gerrymandering and Democratic voters’ clustering in urban districts has moved the median House seat well to the right of the nation. Part of it is bad timing. Democrats have been cursed by a terrible Senate map in 2018: They must defend 25 of their 48 seats1 while Republicans must defend just eight of their 52.
These are the first three paragraphs of a January 25, 2018 Weekly Standard article, titled, "It Won't Be Easy for the Democrats to Take the Senate in 2018". The graphic was included in the story.
The basic math of the 2018 Senate elections shows a challenge for Democrats. In order to win control of the upper chamber, the party need to successfully defend all 26 of its seats up for election (some of which are in highly red states like Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Montana) while taking the open seat in Arizona and unseating Dean Heller in Nevada.* If Republicans manage to beat Democrats in just one of those races, then either Tennessee or Texas (both of which are very red) will likely become a must-win. If Republicans manage to beat Democrats in two or more of those races, then they’re very likely to keep control of the Senate.
And if the new results from a Morning Consult poll hold, the GOP’s path might become easier.
The key point in this graphic is Montana senator Jon Tester.
Tester has suffered a significant drop in his net approval rating since the last quarter (from positive 20 to positive seven), more than any other Democrat who is running for re-election to the senate in 2018. Each point in the graphic represents a Democratic senator running for re-election in 2018, Trump’s margin of victory (or loss) in his or her state (Trump won by larger margins in states further to the right and lost the states further to the left) and how much the senators net approval (approval minus disapproval) changed since Morning Consult’s third-quarter polls. Tester sits in the lower right hand corner—a red state Democrat whose approval rating has dropped.
These are the first three paragraphs of a July 10, 2018 U.S.A.Today story in The Hill, titled, "Pivot counties' will be key in fight for Senate control".
LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Mike Fogleman voted for Democrat Joe Donnelly in the 2012 U.S. Senate race. Then he went for Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race.
Now, Fogleman is backing Donnelly for a second term in the Senate — but with this proviso: “As long as Donnelly supports the Trump agenda, he will get my vote again, as will Trump in 2020,” said Fogleman, a retiree in Tippecanoe County, one of 21 Indiana counties carried by both Donnelly and Trump.
The 2018 battlegrounds are full of so-called “pivot counties” like Tippecanoe — those that voted “blue” for Senate six years ago and “red” for president four years later. And they will be key in the fight for Senate control this fall.
These are the first four paragraphs of a July 10, 2018 story in The Hill, titled, "Democrats break with left on ICE". The links in these paragraphs were in their story.
Senate Democratic candidates are breaking with progressives who are calling for the abolishment of ICE.If I see more news stories and articles from reputable sources (like The Weekly Standard, quoted above) on this subject, I may add them, but this page is already very long.
The push to nix Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has gained steam among the party’s resurgent liberal base in response President Trump’s immigration policies that led to the separation of thousands of immigrant families along the U.S.-Mexico border.
House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought the issue into the national spotlight with her shocking defeat of Rep. Joseph Crowley (D) in last month’s New York primary. And some of the party’s 2020 presidential hopefuls, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), have rallied behind the effort to dismantle ICE.
But Democratic candidates locked in tight races that will likely determine which party controls the Senate next year are stopping short of embracing the idea as they try to win over moderate voters. “No, I don’t think we should,” Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), a vulnerable Democrat seeking reelection, said on Monday when asked if he agreed with calls to abolish ICE.
The first Thanksgiving
This section was added November 29, 2019.These are the first five paragraphs of a November 28, 2019 Washington Times story. All of these links were in their story.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, offered holiday good wishes—and took a swipe at collectivism—with a reminder that the first Thanksgiving was only possible because “the pilgrims rejected socialism.”I have traveled to a recreation of an early colony in my state, called the Plymouth Plantation. The people who help to bring history alive will tell you, in the character of the people who lived there, that part of the reason why half the plantation did die during the first year is because they were not ready for a harsh winter. Specifically, there wasn't enough food, warm clothes, and their houses didn't offer much insulation from cold air and an even colder wind.
“Happy Thanksgiving! Take this day to be thankful for friends and family and don’t forget the first Thanksgiving only happened when the pilgrims rejected socialism,” tweeted Mr. Paul.
He linked to an article by Lawrence W. Reed, president emeritus of the free-market Foundation for Economic Education, who wrote that the Pilgrims’ initial “common property” approach was a disaster.
“Did they live happily ever after in this socialist utopia? Hardly,” Mr. Reed wrote. “Hardly. The ‘common property’ approach killed off about half the settlers.”
After two years, colony governor William Bradford divided the commonly held land into private plots, placing the now-landowners in charge of their crops and saving the Pilgrims from “starvation and extinction.”
Capitalism doesn't take away a person's sympathy for other people who are suffering, but it can drive someone to create better winter clothes, a bigger harvest from crops, and warmer building materials for houses. Under severe conditions, when people are freezing and starving, they will pay more to stay alive than when they are eating well and living in a warm climate.
Individual Democrats who don't like the party
They are the face of this faction, for better or for worse.The Democrat who spoke at a Republican Presidential Convention
This section was added March 23, 2018.These are the first three paragraphs of an August 27, 2004 profile of Zell Miller on the website Slate, subtitled, "Why the Democratic senator loathes Democrats".
A main theme of George Bush's re-election campaign is the notion that it's Democrats, and not Bush himself, who are responsible for the bitter partisanship in America today. Bush, after all, pledged in 2000 to be "a uniter, not a divider." So it's a little awkward for him that the United States is now about as united as an English soccer stadium. Republicans say their party occupies the mainstream, common-sense political center. The real problem, they argue, is that the Democratic Party has been driven left by monomaniacal special interest groups and the wild-eyed likes of Michael Moore, George Soros, and Whoopi Goldberg. Their favorite piece of evidence? Zell Miller.These are the first two sentences in the second paragraph.
Miller is a silver-haired Democratic senator from Georgia who has dedicated the twilight of his long career to excoriating his own party. The 72-year-old Miller has become such a heretic, in fact, that he will deliver the keynote address at next week's Republican convention in New York City. It's a strange twist of history, given that Miller delivered the keynote address on behalf of Bill Clinton in 1992 (also at Madison Square Garden, as it happens).
But the Miller of old is long gone. Nowadays Miller sounds like some kind of right-wing beat poet. Of Democratic values he says: "If this is a national party, sushi is our national dish. If this is a national party, surfboarding has become our national pastime." Of John Kerry: "You can't make a chicken swim, and you can't make John Kerry anything but an out-of-touch ultraliberal from Taxachussetts." National Democrats are "being cannibalized, eaten alive by the special-interest groups with their single-issue constituents who care about their own narrow agenda."
"Miller is a silver-haired Democratic senator from Georgia who has dedicated the twilight of his long career to excoriating his own party. The 72-year-old Miller has become such a heretic, in fact, that he will deliver the keynote address at next week's Republican convention in New York City."
The following two videos recorded the speech he gave at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
He died on March 23, 2018. These are the first six paragraphs of his obituary on Fox News. All of these links were in the story.
Zell Miller, former Georgia governor and U.S. senator, is being remembered as a "true statesmen" and a "visionary" for his unique HOPE Scholarship program, among other achievements, by those who knew him. He died Friday at the age of 86.This is the last quoted paragraph, without the link.
Miller’s grandson, Bryan Miller, confirmed in a statement that his grandfather “passed away peacefully surrounded by his family."
"The people of Georgia have lost one of our state’s finest public servants," he added.
Miller died after being treated for Parkinson’s disease, according to the statement.
A life-long Democrat, Miller served as Georgia's governor in the 1990s and later in the U.S Senate from 2000 to 2005. Miller famously created the HOPE program, lottery-funded scholarships, during his two terms as governor.
Miller, who served in the Marine Corps in the early 1950s, was also the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992 and again, as a sitting U.S. senator and Democrat, at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
"Miller, who served in the Marine Corps in the early 1950s, was also the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992 and again, as a sitting U.S. senator and Democrat, at the 2004 Republican National Convention."
These are the first two paragraphs of his page on a website called CorpsStories. The link was on the page.
Zell Miller credits the Marine Corps for turning his life around as a young man. He had dropped out of Emory University and landed in the drunk tank for a night in 1953 when he decided to sign up for a three-year enlistment in the Marines. Miller did his 12-week boot camp at Parris Island, SC, followed by time at Naval Training Station in Great Lakes, IL and the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, NC. By the end of the three years, he had earned the rank of sergeant and was an Expert Rifleman. Miller went on to become a history professor, mayor of his hometown of Young Harris, Georgia, a state senator, lieutenant governor for 16 years, governor for eight years and now, a U.S. senator.
"My experience in the United States Marine Corps steered me onto the path of success. The Marine Corps instilled in me honor, courage and commitment - core values that have sustained me through thick and thin,'' Miller said in a public service announcement he taped for the Marine Corps in 2001. You can listen to this PSA by clicking here.
This sentence is in the first paragraph. The photo was copied from the same website."By the end of the three years, he had earned the rank of sergeant and was an Expert Rifleman."
Few Democrats can make either statement because few Democrats understand that learning how to fight a war is one of the best ways to prevent a war.
More obitiaries
Roseanne Barr
These are the first five paragraphs of a March 23, 2018 Biz Pac Review article. The photo after the article was included in the article.Roseanne Barr advised Trump-hating comedian Jimmy Kimmel to “zip that f***en lip” unless he’s actively rooting for the United States to fail.
Barr made the remarks while promoting the upcoming reboot of “Roseanne,” the hit TV series she starred in from 1988 to 1997.
Barr — part of an underreported group of Americans who became Trump supporters thanks to Hillary — said she’s still the same person, but today’s “liberals” have become so radical and so far-left they turned her off.
“I’m still the same. You all moved,” Barr said. “You all went so f**ken far out! You lost everything. I mean, seriously.”
Kimmel conceded: “You’re probably right, by the way.”
The Democrat President who ended Welfare
This section was added March 24, 2018.These are the first seven paragraphs of the statement that President Bill Clinton made in 1996 when he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. This statement is on the website of the American Presidency Project, which is part of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Today, I have signed into law H.R. 3734, the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996." While far from perfect, this legislation provides an historic opportunity to end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and family.These are the second and third paragraphs of his statement.
This Act honors my basic principles of real welfare reform. It requires work of welfare recipients, limits the time they can stay on welfare, and provides child care and health care to help them make the move from welfare to work.
It demands personal responsibility, and puts in place tough child support enforcement measures. It promotes family and protects children.
This bipartisan legislation is significantly better than the bills that I vetoed. The Congress has removed many of the worst provisions of the vetoed bills and has included many of the improvements that I sought. I am especially pleased that the Congress has preserved the guarantee of health care for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled.
Most important, this Act is tough on work. Not only does it include firm but fair work requirements, it provides $4 billion more in child care than the vetoed bills—so that parents can end their dependency on welfare and go to work—and maintains health and safety standards for day care providers. The bill also gives States positive incentives to move people into jobs and holds them accountable for maintaining spending on welfare reform. In addition, it gives States the ability to create subsidized jobs and to provide employers with incentives to hire people off welfare.
The Act also does much more to protect children than the vetoed bills. It cuts spending on childhood disability programs less deeply and does not unwisely change the child protection programs. It maintains the national nutritional safety net, by eliminating the Food Stamp annual spending cap and the Food Stamp and School Lunch block grants that the vetoed bills contained. In addition, it preserves the Federal guarantee of health care for individuals who are currently eligible for Medicaid through the AFDC program or are in transition from welfare to work.
Furthermore, this Act includes the tough personal responsibility and child support enforcement measures that I proposed 2 years ago. It requires minor mothers to live at home and stay in school as a condition of assistance. It cracks down on parents who fail to pay child support by garnishing their wages, suspending their driver's licenses, tracking them across State lines, and, if necessary, making them work off what they owe.
"This Act honors my basic principles of real welfare reform. It requires work of welfare recipients, limits the time they can stay on welfare, and provides child care and health care to help them make the move from welfare to work.
It demands personal responsibility, and puts in place tough child support enforcement measures. It promotes family and protects children."
| In this video, recorded in 1996 outside of the White House, Vice-President Al Gore introduces a mother who is receiving welfare. She reads a statement about her experience and then leaves the podium so that President Clinton can make his own speech about the new law. His statement lasts for about 20 minutes. |
This is the first explanatory paragraph of this law, on the website of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
On August 22, President Clinton signed into law "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193)," a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform plan that will dramatically change the nation's welfare system into one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance. The law contains strong work requirements, a performance bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work -- including increased funding for child care and guaranteed medical coverage.
President Bill Clinton also deregulated America's banks
This section was added October 20, 2018.These are the first four paragraphs of an April 19, 2014 Guardian (U.K.) story.
Wall Street deregulation, blamed for deepening the banking crisis, was aggressively pushed by advisers to Bill Clinton who have also been at the heart of current White House policy-making, according to newly disclosed documents from his presidential library.
The previously restricted papers reveal two separate attempts, in 1995 and 1997, to hurry Clinton into supporting a repeal of the Depression-era Glass Steagall Act and allow investment banks, insurers and retail banks to merge.
A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999, giving retrospective clearance to the 1998 merger of Citigroup and Travelers Group and unleashing a wave of Wall Street consolidation that was later blamed for forcing taxpayers to spend billions bailing out the enlarged banks after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
The White House papers show only limited discussion of the risks of such deregulation, but include a private note which reveals that details of a deal with Citigroup to clear its merger in advance of the legislation were deleted from official documents, for fear of it leaking out.
These are the first five paragraphs of a January 17, 2016 Boston Globe story.
WASHINGTON — The financial services executive reached out to Senator Hillary Clinton’s office to discuss legislation that would affect banks. It seemed natural to make the connection: The executive represented some of the largest New York financial institutions.
The call was quickly returned, excellent service provided to a professional watching out for the interests of the country’s biggest banks. But it wasn’t Clinton’s office on the line. An aide to New York’s other senator, Charles Schumer, called back.
Yielding to Schumer on financial legislation was part of a pattern in the Senate when Hillary Clinton served there: She took a mostly hands-off approach to Wall Street regulation. With banks enjoying a new era of deregulation that her husband helped create, a neutralized Clinton represented a win for the financial services industry and its perpetual effort to free itself from Washington’s hand.
The junior senator from New York rarely signed on to bills related to the financial services industry — whether the banks supported or opposed the measures. Of the 189 Senate bills that their lobbyists identified as significant banking or finance legislation, she cosponsored only 25.
Of those, most of the ones she put her name on were also backed by Schumer — a member of the Senate Banking Committee who has never been known as an anti-Wall Street crusader.
Many of the news stories about the 2008 financial crisis, including this August 27, 2012 U.S. News story, blame the deregulation of the banks for the crisis. To support their argument, they summarize the history of the stock market in the early 20th century. Improvements in consumer goods were helped by the ability of many Americans to buy them, thanks to a rising stock market, and the investment divisions of many banks allowed middle-class families to participate by selling stock. This was before the Glass-Steagall Act was passed.
The U.S. News story correctly says that the trading price of many stocks were far higher than the true value of those stocks, but there's a problem.
As the decade progressed, the stock market boomed and eventually reached bubble territory. Along with the bubble came market manipulation in the form of organized pools that would ramp up the price of stocks and dump them on unsuspecting suckers just before the stock collapsed. Banks joined in by offering stocks of holding companies that were leveraged pyramid schemes and other securities backed by dubious assets.
In 1929, the music stopped, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. It took eight years from the start of the boom to the bust. Subsequent investigations revealed the extent of the fraud that preceded the crash. In 1933, Congress passed Glass-Steagall in response to the abuses. Banks would be allowed to take deposits and make loans. Brokers would be allowed to underwrite and sell securities. But no firm could do both due to conflicts of interest and risks to insured deposits. From 1933 to 1999, there were very few large bank failures and no financial panics comparable to the Panic of 2008. The law worked exactly as intended.
This characterization of the crash is inaccurate. There were two reasons why there weren't many large bank failures from 1933 until 1999.
- Many large banks had already failed during the first year of the crash, leaving stronger banks to pick up the pieces.
- Congress passed and the President signed legislation The Securities Act of 1933, which forced securities dealers to improve the accuracy of a stock's prospectus.
If your company has registered a class of its equity securities under the Exchange Act, shareholders who acquire more than 5% of the outstanding shares of that class must file beneficial owner reports on Schedule 13D or 13G until their holdings drop below 5%. These filings contain background information about the shareholders who file them as well as their investment intentions, providing investors and the company with information about accumulations of securities that may potentially change or influence company management and policies.
The protection of America's consumers were further strengthened by the passage of The Trust Indenture Act of 1939, which regulates debt securities such as bonds, debentures, and notes that are offered for public sale, and by the Investment Company Act of 1940, which allowed the S.E.C. to regulate mutual funds.
These are the third and fourth paragraphs of the preface to a 663-page report of a commission, dated January 2011. Page 10 of this document names the 83 people who were staff members of the commission.
The Commission was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act (Public Law 111-21) passed by Congress and signed by the President in May 2009. This independent, 10-member panel was composed of private citizens with experience in areas such as housing, economics, finance, market regulation, banking, and consumer protection. Six members of the Commission were appointed by the Democratic leadership of Congress and four members by the Republican leadership.
The Commission’s statutory instructions set out 22 specific topics for inquiry and called for the examination of the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government. This report fulfills these mandates. In addition, the Commission was instructed to refer to the Attorney General of the United States and any appropriate state attorney General any person that the Commission found may have violated the laws of the United States in relation to the crisis. Where the Commission found such potential violations, it referred those matters to the appropriate authorities. The Commission used the authority it was given to issue subpoenas to compel testimony and the production of documents, but in the vast majority of instances, companies and individuals voluntarily cooperated with this inquiry.
There are separate chapters in this 663-page report on derivative securities (Chapter 3), deregulation (Chapter 4), subprime lending (Chapter 5), Collaterialized Debt Obligations (Chapter 8), the collapse of Bear Stearns (Chapter 15), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Chapter 17), the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (Chapter 18), and the bailout of the company called the American International Group, usually known by its' acronym A.I.G. (Chapter 19).
These laws, and the regulations that were made by the Securities and Exchange Commission, were adequate for the purpose of protecting the bulk of America's investors. The end of the Glass-Steagall Act wasn't a catastrophe after all.
President Clinton also spoke out against illegal immigration
... during a State of the Union speech in 1996.Bill Clinton Presidential Speech on Illegal Immigration 1996 pic.twitter.com/O7ItoymGPW— David Blackwelder (@BlackwelderWake) November 14, 2018
Most of the Democrat Party disagrees with President Clinton
The articles in this section are arranged in chronological order, oldest first.This is the sub-headline of an article that was printed in the March 1997 issue of The Atlantic magazine. The photo after the article was included in the article.
A Clinton appointee who resigned in protest over the new welfare law explains why it is so bad and suggests how its worst effects could be mitigated.These are the first two paragraphs of that same article.
I hate welfare. To be more precise, I hate the welfare system we had until last August, when Bill Clinton signed a historic bill ending “welfare as we know it.” It was a system that contributed to chronic dependency among large numbers of people who would be the first to say they would rather have a job than collect a welfare check every month—and its benefits were never enough to lift people out of poverty. In April of 1967 I helped Robert Kennedy with a speech in which he called the welfare system bankrupt and said it was hated universally, by payers and recipients alike. Criticism of welfare for not helping people to become self-supporting is nothing new.
But the bill that President Clinton signed is not welfare reform. It does not promote work effectively, and it will hurt millions of poor children by the time it is fully implemented. What’s more, it bars hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants—including many who have worked in the United States for decades and paid a considerable amount in Social Security and income taxes—from receiving disability and old-age assistance and food stamps, and reduces food-stamp assistance for millions of children in working families.
When "food-stamp assistance", as mentioned in the last quoted sentence, is reduced, that gives families an economic incentive to work harder in their jobs in order to earn raises, bonuses, and promotions, all of which contributes to a better quality of life. This principle is documented in my August 2012 essay To Insure Domestic Tranquility, Encourage Income Mobility.
| When that essay was first published, it included some examples of up-and-down income mobility for individual people. They are now on a separately-published sequel called Stories of Individual Income Mobility, which includes this video. It is possible for other people to raise themselves out of poverty without government assistance. |
These are the first five paragraphs of an October 23, 2010 Op-Ed in the New York Times. Notice that the Op-Ed explicitly mentions factions within the Democrat Party.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seemed to rewrite all the rules in electoral politics and herald a new progressive era in America. Democrats assembled a huge Congressional majority and, in the euphoria that followed the historic election, were poised to enact sweeping change. However, despite some notable successes — the stimulus package, health care reform, tighter rules for the financial industry — things have not gone according to plan. Just two years later, Democrats face a bad economy, a skeptical public, a re-energized Republican Party and a coming avalanche of losses in the midterm elections.
What happened? One important explanation is that divisions inside the Democratic coalition, which held together during the 2008 campaign, have come spilling out into the open. Conservative Democrats have opposed key elements of the president’s agenda, while liberal Democrats have howled that their majority is being hijacked by a rogue group of predominantly white men from small rural states. President Obama himself appears caught in the middle, unable to satisfy the many factions inside his party’s big tent.
Conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives — whose election in 2006 and 2008 enabled Nancy Pelosi to preside over a supermajority (there are 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans) — increasingly question whether she should relinquish her position as speaker. Representative Heath Shuler of western North Carolina, a leader of the restive Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats, has even hinted that he may run for her job. Representative Shuler is an unlikely candidate for leader of the party — a devout Southern Baptist who voted against the stimulus, the bank and auto bailouts and health care reform. Yet he’s exactly the kind of Democrat that the party worked very hard to recruit for public office.
This is the second sentence in the second paragraph."Conservative Democrats have opposed key elements of the president’s agenda, while liberal Democrats have howled that their majority is being hijacked by a rogue group of predominantly white men from small rural states."
That is an explicit statement of the fact that the Democrat Party has factions that sometimes disagree with each other on economic issues. This Op-Ed was published in October 2010.
These are the first three paragraphs of a September 26, 2012 article in The Nation. In September 2012, the Republican Party's presidential nominee was Mitt Romney, and the Vice-Presidential nominee was Paul Ryan, who is now the Speaker of the House.
Welfare has been on the forefront of the GOP’s brain lately, as the Romney/Ryan team has been relentlessly (and falsely) accusing President Obama of “gutting” welfare reform. So it’s unsurprising that it might came up in President Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC last night. After all, Clinton was the one to sign the 1996 welfare reform bill, transforming the program into what it is today. It made sense for him to defend President Obama from the Republican attacks saying he was undoing his own legislation.
In the midst of his defense of Obama, not one to miss a chance to give himself a little back-pat, Clinton said of the ’90s reforms: “This is personal to me. We moved millions of people off welfare. It was one of the reasons that in the eight years I was president, we had a hundred times as many people move out of poverty into the middle class than happened under the previous twelve years, a hundred times as many. It’s a big deal.”
But while welfare reform may have initially reduced poverty, it left those still living at that income level worse off than they were before, reaching fewer of them and giving those it did reach less. And our poverty rates didn’t stay low. When they began to rise again, the program couldn’t offer them the support it used to. The recession has been a crystal clear, and incredibly painful, demonstration of this fact.
This is the first sentence in the third paragraph, which shows the goals of this publication.
"But while welfare reform may have initially reduced poverty, it left those still living at that income level worse off than they were before, reaching fewer of them and giving those it did reach less."
This article shows the economic viewpoint of a typical Democrat. Most of their party believes that the poorest members of any society, especially those in America, should be helped out of poverty by giving them direct assistance, including food stamps, subsidized housing, and direct cash payments.That viewpoint disagrees with the Republican view and with the very old Chinese wisdom that is pictured on the right.
This is a link to a February 27, 2016 Washington Post story titled Bernie Sanders is right: Bill Clinton’s welfare law doubled extreme poverty.
These are the first five paragraphs of a June 1, 2016 article in Slate Magazine, written by their Senior Business and Economics Correspondent. All of these links were in their article.
If you want a sense of how thoroughly America’s welfare system has decayed thanks to the reforms Bill Clinton signed into law two decades ago, consider Arizona.
Despite being home to one of the nation’s most crushing child poverty rates, the state has all but stopped giving cash assistance to its needy. During 2014, for every 100 poor families with children in Arizona, just 8 families received aid. And even that tiny fraction is likely to shrink. Last year, while trying to chip away at a $1 billion budget deficit, lawmakers lowered the maximum amount of time Arizonans could receive welfare payments before being kicked off the rolls permanently—it’s now just 12 months.
This was a first. Most states enforce a five-year time limit. Some, including Arizona, have gone as low as two years. None had tried the one-year-and-you’re-out approach.
The last quoted sentence uses a baseball analogy. In baseball, when a player whose team is "at-bat" is declared "out" by an umpire, he cannot play any more during that half-inning.The photo on the left shows a player being "tagged out" by another player. In this kind of a play, the glove worn by the player on the left would be holding a baseball.
A baseball analogy is inappropriate for a situation involving a welfare family, whose living standards are not a game.
Balanced views of Bill Clinton's reform
These are the first two paragraphs of an August 22, 2001 National Public Radio article. The photo after the article was included in the article.Five years ago today, a massive overhaul of the nation's welfare system was signed into law. "Welfare should be a second chance, not a way of life," then-President Bill Clinton said as he approved the bill. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act imposed a five-year lifetime limit on assistance to welfare recipients. That cap kicks in this year and next for tens of thousands of families.
Clinton faced vehement protests from some of his staunchest supporters when he signed welfare reform bill. But today, the measures aimed at getting people off assistance and into jobs are generally deemed a success. At its peak in 1996, Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- the main government program providing income assistance to the poor -- had a caseload of 4.55 million families. It is now less than half that.
 |
This is the caption to this graphic.
The welfare caseload has dropped to half its peak in 1994.
Sources: The Brookings Institution and the Congressional Research Service. |
"Clinton faced vehement protests from some of his staunchest supporters when he signed welfare reform bill. But today, the measures aimed at getting people off assistance and into jobs are generally deemed a success."
That National Public Radio article, published in 2001, said that there were "fierce critics" of the centrist economic view that helped him to sign the legislation that reformed welfare. Judging by the March 2018 CNN article that is quoted on this page, there are fierce critics of centrist Democrats today, but very little of this criticism comes from the Republican Party, which likes the idea that some Democrats can work with them instead of against them on economic issues for the benefit of the entire country.
These are the first five paragraphs of a July 22, 2018 Washington Times story.
Once upon a time, work for welfare was a pretty accepted notion. In 1996, Bill Clinton signed a strict workfare bill that was so popular, it helped him get re-elected. A Brookings Institute study by welfare scholar Ron Haskins proved those reforms moved more than half of those on welfare (mostly young single moms) into the workforce, and millions eventually gained economic self-sufficiency.Q. Why work when welfare benefits total more than $30,000 every year?
If ever there were a public policy triumph, this was it.
During Barack Obama’s first term, those reforms were pretty much eviscerated. The recession was so deep the poverty lobby argued that there were no jobs for the welfare recipients to fill. Moreover, enrollment in the non-work requirement welfare programs, such as food stamps, Medicaid, disability and housing assistance, exploded.
Even as the unemployment rate fell, food stamps, Medicaid and disability enrollment remained at near-record highs. Is it a coincidence that during the Obama presidency, as welfare ballooned, workforce participation rates for those in the prime working ages fell dramatically?
The panoply of more than 20 welfare programs has become a substitute, not a supplement, for work. A Cato Institute studies showed that the full package of federal and state welfare benefits could deliver a family with more than $30,000 of benefits — tax and work-free. Why work?
A. If you are young enough to develop a career, if you have a good work ethic good job skills, and a good resumé, you can earn more than $30,000 per year in a good job.
Another former President breaks with his party
These are the first four paragraphs of a December 2, 2020 New York Post story. The link in the third paragraph was in their story.Barack Obama trashed the “defund the police” movement — calling it a “snappy” catchphrase that’s more interested in making people “feel good” than creating change.Similar stories were published the same day by
The former president sounded off about police reform in two new interviews out this week.
In one, with Vanity Fair contributor Peter Hamby, Obama is asked if he had words of advice for new-age activists who believe in the “defund the police” movement.
“I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like Defund the Police, but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” he said.
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And, on the same day, an extremist faction of the Democrat Party, whose most outspoken members are four Congresswomen, criticized him for his moderate atttude.
Ex-President Obama is either a hypocrite or a liar. Two days after this year's Election Day, he said that he supported police reform.
