WASHINGTON—President Bill Clinton in 1996 signed welfare reform into law, fulfilling his campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it.” A quarter-century later, advocates of that overhaul effort accuse the Biden administration of seeking to overturn the bipartisan accomplishment, calling its proposal an “attack” on the U.S. welfare system.
A majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the reform bill in 1996 in an effort to break what they termed a culture of poverty and dependence. Ten years after signing the legislation, Clinton took a victory lap to declare welfare reform a “great success,” in a New York Times op-ed.
