Trump’s welfare reforms are a major victory. Bureaucrats could still wreck them

Is America doomed to repeat its welfare mistakes? That’s the question on the 30th anniversary of the 1996 welfare reforms, which President Clinton signed on August 22.

The law empowered millions of families to move from welfare to work, but it has since been replaced by an even more costly and harmful welfare state.

Over $18 trillion in welfare spending later, President Trump championed an even bigger reform in the law he signed last summer.

It represents historic progress, yet its success depends on tireless enforcement against states and bureaucrats that want to undermine it.

The next welfare reform is already needed — sooner rather than later.

Even now, the 1996 welfare reform stands out as one of the most transformative policies in recent history.

The law famously targeted the country’s main cash welfare program, which had trapped families in poverty and dependency for decades.

It created a new program — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — that connected mostly single mothers to work.

By 2005, TANF caseloads had dropped by nearly 60%, saving taxpayers billions of dollars while improving millions of lives.

DR.

OZ UNVEILS MEDICAID OVERHAUL, CLAMPS DOWN ON $2B FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND MANDATES WORK FOR ABLE-BODIED Yet the progress with cash welfare was overshadowed by a backward slide in food stamps.

While the 1996 law created much-needed work requirements for able-bodied adults, it had Swiss cheese levels of loopholes.

State officials and federal bureaucrats conspired to the point that, in 2023, about 95% of able-bodied adults on food stamps were not covered by work requirements.

Meanwhile, other welfare programs not touched in 1996 have exploded.