Bill Clinton: Radio Address on the Welfare Reform Act

Audience

The president aimed his speech at the general public, with the primary goal of signaling the next steps needed to ensure the success of welfare reform. He also clearly wanted to indicate to the states some of his concerns about the bill itself as well as to convey ways in which state welfare programs might be set up effectively.

Clinton delivered his radio address one month after his reelection in 1996. Welfare reform had been one of the dominant issues of the campaign. Clinton had made the issue key in his 1992 bid for the presidency but had been sidetracked by other issues, notably health care reform. His adviser Dick Morris informed Clinton that the passage of welfare reform would strongly aid his reelection bid. Thus, political expediency played a major role in the passage of welfare reform. It is no accident that the president gave this speech, rallying the nation around the issue, shortly after his reelection.

Beginning with the so-called Reagan revolution of the 1980s, the American public had moved noticeably to the center politically. One issue that appealed broadly to this new, more conservative electorate was the reduction of big government, and welfare fraud and abuse became the symbols of wasteful federal spending. Reagan invoked the image of the “welfare queen,” collecting government checks for life while honest, hard-working Americans footed the bill. At the same time, Americans did not want to see all aid programs eliminated. They wanted, as the historian William Berman notes, the end of “‘value-free' effort[s] to provide uplift and support for lazy and ungrateful welfare recipients” (p. 190). Clinton's address reflected this more centrist audience; he emphasized tough work requirements but also maintained a tone of sympathy for “trapped” families.

As the social policy analyst Alvin L. Schorr points out, AFDC was not designed for a 1990s society in which women were expected to work whether they wanted to or not. In 1935, and even during the 1960s, American women were viewed as homemakers and mothers, not breadwinners. Clinton's public audience, however, had different conceptions of gender roles; AFDC was unpopular with the public because it was based on outdated notions of women's role in society.

Not everyone was pleased with the president's decision to sign the PRWORA. The Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York referred to the legislation as “the most brutal act of social policy since Reconstruction” (qtd. in Harris, p. 250). Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala was also against the bill, as was Robert Reich, the labor secretary, and Harold Ickes, the deputy chief of staff. Clinton himself was particularly concerned with the elimination of benefits for legal immigrants as well as other cuts in services. Thus, in this speech, he emphasized that passing the PRWORA was not the end of welfare reform; it was only one step in the process.