ABSTRACT
Bill Clinton had campaigned for president in 1992 promising to “end welfare as we know it.”2 In the summer of 1996, his first term was coming to a close. Not only were the welfare laws he had criticized still in place, but he had twice vetoed welfare reform bills that Congress had passed. He had been able to justify those vetoes, despite his campaign rhetoric and his virtual silence about what kind of welfare reform he wanted Congress to pass, because on both occasions, Congress included in the bills severe cutbacks in food stamps and aid for disabled children. In late spring, 1996, it looked as though the Republicans running Congress would give Clinton still another bill he could veto easily, a bill that included cutbacks in the immensely popular Medicaid program. But Clinton wanted to sign a welfare bill, and congressional leaders wanted to show that they could compromise enough to pass an important law, even though Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described the impact on children of this particular statute as “the most brutal act of social policy since Reconstruction.”3
