Hours after the 109th Congress convened in early January, Republican majority leaders delivered this startling notice: they intend to transform public aid to the poor into a compulsory work program that offers little opportunity for recipients to lift themselves from poverty. This transformation was

Jan 8 this year marked the 40th anniversary of President Lyndon B Johnson rsquo s declaration of unconditional war on poverty in America just weeks after taking office in the wake of John F Kennedy rsquo s assassination Johnson rsquo s successor Ronald Reagan asserted in 1988 however that P

Back when President Bill Clinton rsquo s pledge to ldquo end welfare as we know it rdquo was known in White House corridors as ldquo EWAWKI rdquo pronounced to rhyme with Milwaukee Jason DeParle senior writer at The New York Times was closer to the policy story than any reporter DeParle cou

While Ronald Reagan tagged Democrats with his tax and spend label it was his 1980 electoral adversary Jimmy Carter who while governing Georgia in the 1970 rsquo s pioneered zero-based budgeting in government the system by which each program rsquo s very existence must be justified every time spe