When Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996, many hailed it as a necessary step toward ending the dependency of the poor.  Dependence on the state, that is.  Barack Obama praised the bill during his presidential campaign, and in fact made a point of noting that he had helped cut the welfare rolls when he was in the Illinois state legislature.  Rick Santorum has said it gives the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.” But as Jason DeParle points out in this must-read piece, thanks to welfare reform and the terrible state of the economy, poor people are doing worse today than they have in years.  Even in this recession, states like Arizona continue to cut the welfare […]

  “If he can run his household, he can run the country. Amen!” —Haley Harris, Rick Santorum supporter and chanteuse, profiled in today’s New York Times (h/t Elias Isquith) “In order to keep the state out of the hands of the people, it is necessary to keep the family out of the hands of women and children.” —Louis de Bonald, French counterrevolutionary quoted in The Reactionary Mind