Linking Clinton Policies to Poverty, Sanders Lays Out Plan to Help Nation’s Poor
(COMMON DREAMS) Deirdre Fulton, February 25, 2016 — In a speech linking policies supported by Hillary Clinton to economic hardships of U.S. children, families, and workers, Bernie Sanders on Wednesday laid out his anti-poverty agenda in Columbia, South Carolina.
Noting that the U.S. “today has the highest poverty rate of nearly any major country on earth because almost all of the new wealth and income is going to the people on top,” Sanders lambasted the 1996 welfare reform bill signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.”
What welfare reform did in my view was to go after some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in this country,” Sanders said, before highlighting Hillary Clinton’s support (pdf) for the legislation as First Lady.
“During that period, I spoke out against so-called ‘welfare reform’ because I thought it was scapegoating people who were helpless, people who were very, very vulnerable,” he continued. “Secretary Clinton at that time had a very different position on welfare reform. She strongly supported it and worked hard to round up votes for its passage.”