Watchdogs Call Romney’s Claims “False”
In his visit to Iowa Wedneday, Mitt Romney kept up his attacks on President Obama’s changes to welfare rules.
“In a very careful executive action, he (Obama) removed the requirement of work from welfare,” said Romney in Des Moines. “It is wrong to make any change that would make America more of a nation of government dependency. We must restore, and I will restore, work for welfare.”
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This attack is part of Romney’s latest campaign activities, including a new ad launched this week criticizing Obama’s revisions to welfare requirements.
Yet, trusted fact checkers and Democratic leaders are saying that Romney’s claims on welfare revisions are "false” and distortions.
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The Pulitzer-prize winning Politifact watchdog group rated Romney’s new welfare ad as “pants on fire false, “ On the ad, Politifact said, “That's a drastic distortion of the planned changes to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. By granting waivers to states, the Obama administration is seeking to make welfare-to-work efforts more successful, not end them. What’s more, the waivers would apply to individually evaluated pilot programs -- HHS is not proposing a blanket, national change to welfare law.” See the full Polifact critique at: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/07/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-barack-obamas-plan-abandons-tenet/
Also, the Washington Post rated Romney’s attack ad with "four Pinocchios,” meaning they contain “whoppers” of errors. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/spin-and-counterspin-in-the-welfare-debate/2012/08/07/61bf03b6-e0e3-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html#pagebreak
President Bill Clinton called Romney’s welfare ad claims false.
"Governor Romney released an ad... alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act," Clinton said. "That is not true. We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads.”
Romney was one of many Republican governors who asked the federal government in 2005 to permit waivers providing increased flexibility for state welfare programs.