Congressman Peter Roskam, IL - 6th, doesn't have time to debate challenger Leslie Coolidge, but he sure has time to take the House floor and promote the scurrilous GOP charge that President Obama has gutted the welfare to work requirements in the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Roskam emailed his constituents a You Tube video of his speech which is breathtaking in its sophistry, the use of false arguments to deceive people.
In it Roskam, without proof or citation whatsoever, claims that new Administration rules for maintaining welfare while training to become employable, include, get this, helping a friend rake their leaves. This is Roskam's way of spreading the false GOP narrative that the Democratic Party simply wants to give welfare without strings. What Roskam conveniently omitted is that Republican governors have requested waivers from some of the rigid, onerous requirements that inhibit rather than stimulate welfare to job progression. Roskam omitted that waivers could allow for special requirements for welfare recipients with special needs children. Roskam omitted that any waivers have to be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services only if they make welfare to work more likely, not less likely or not at all.
Roskam omits these inconvenient facts to shamelessly politicize the enormously critical subject of moving folks from welfare to work. Speaking of work, Congressman Roskam conveniently avoids the hard but necessary Congressional work of debating his opponent in front of his constituents. I'll bet he needs that time to help a friend rake leaves.
