John Kasich Collaborated With Clintons on 1990s Law That Helped Double Extreme Poverty

As House Budget Committee chairman in the 1990s, Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has promoted himself as a friend of the working poor and a foe of Hillary Clinton, worked with the Clintons to throw Americans off welfare—a bipartisan project that helped double the rate of extreme poverty in the United States.

Zaid Jilani reports at The Intercept:

In 1996, the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans worked hand in hand to pass what they called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, colloquially known as “welfare reform.”

The legislation famously “ended welfare as we know it,” replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The newly-created TANF placed a time limit on how long the federal government would extend financial assistance to poor families.

Kasich was one of the legislation’s prime movers. After clashes between Clinton and the Republicans over earlier versions of the bill, Kasich introduced what went on to become the final legislation in June 1996. By late July, the administration and the Republicans had solved their disagreements, and a conference bill coasted to passage by a 328-101 vote (Bernie Sanders, another presidential contender, opposed it).

The black poster mother for Bill Clinton’s welfare reform—which Hillary Clinton vigorously supported at the time—was a woman named Lillie Harden. Bill said of her, “I want to make more people like that woman, Lillie Harden. So I’ve got a plan to do it. And it’s just the beginning.”

Six years after passage of the anti-welfare law Hardin had a stroke. “She was unable to get on Medicaid because she was no longer on welfare, and she couldn’t afford her $450 monthly bill for prescription drugs,” Jilani reports. “It didn’t pay off in the end,” she said of her work. She died in March 2014, at the age of 59.

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—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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