When I was labor secretary welfare ended but now it’s back and three-quarters of Americans – and many Republicans – approve
A quarter-century ago, I and other members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet urged him to reject the Republican proposal to end welfare. It was too punitive, we said, subjecting poor Americans to deep and abiding poverty. But Clinton’s political advisers warned that unless he went along, he would jeopardize his reelection.
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US