Senator Santorum: "Work and Human Dignity" - Chapter 15: Work and Human Dignity from the book "It Takes a Family"
Finally, there is Billy Jo Morton. When I was sworn into the Senate in 1995, I decided that since I was going to take an active role in reforming welfare I had better see how it works firsthand.
So I immediately hired five people on welfare, about 10 percent of my staff, to work in my Pennsylvania offices. Billy Jo worked for me in her first job off welfare in my Harrisburg office. She told me that until she was forced to move off the rolls she thought she was stuck with two kids at home and no chance for a better life. Billy Jo was a great employee. After a while, we provided her a flexible enough schedule that she could go to community college to pick up some college credits part-time. There were some bumps along the way, but after a few years she moved on to something better. She was offered a scholarship to finish her degree, which she did, in education. She is now working as a teacher. Read More

Santorum floor remarks - 104th Congress 2nd Session 7/23/96
Mr. President, I just want to say that this is welfare reform. This is the dramatic change in the system that the American public has been asking for for years and years and years. Read More

Bob Casey: A Campaign Profile - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 3/24/02
Casey disagreed with the Clinton administration's embrace of welfare reform and trade liberalization measures such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"I couldn't have voted for that," Casey said of the 1996 welfare overhaul, passed in the year he first ran for office. "You were saying, 'Let's make people more self-sufficient,' but you weren't giving them the tools to do that. ... A lot of Democrats nationally and in the state say, 'You're crazy. We should be able to move in that other direction,' but I just don't agree with them." Read More

Welfare Reform Succeeded Because It Trusted the Poor - Detroit News 8/29/06
Last week marked the 10th anniversary of welfare reform, which made radical changes to receiving unearned government cash. Read More

Apocalypse Not - Wall Street Journal 8/26/06
Welfare reform turned 10 this week, and more remarkable than its near-total success is the near-total amnesia that seems to have gripped its one-time opponents. Read More

How We Ended Welfare, Together - New York Times 8/22/06
Ten years ago today I signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Read More

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