The New York Post's Charles Hurt reports:
Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms. The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments. But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new "stimulus" bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states. "Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund," Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.
You'll remember from the campaign that one of Obama's signature accomplishments as an Illinois State Senator was that he "passed a law to move people from welfare to work - slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Well, he didn't personally pass the law, he was a co-sponsor. At the time, credit was given to the state's Republican governor and President Clinton, who pushed welfare reform through at the federal level. Obama said then that he " probably would not have supported the federal legislation," and that he found President Clinton's position on the issue "disturbing." During the campaign Obama was particularly sensitive to the allegation that his tax cuts amounted to "welfare" by providing credits to individuals who paid no income tax at all. The press likewise suggested that any criticism of Obama's welfare-like policies amounted to thinly veiled racism. It would be ironic then if Obama's first major act as president was a massive expansion of welfare -- and a massive expansion of medicare -- without any debate at all.