ON THIS DAY, 30 YEARS AGO…. OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS ACTUALLY LISTENED TO THE PEOPLE THEY WERE ELECTED TO REPRESENT… The House passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), a bipartisan welfare reform bill. Passed the House: July 18, 1996 Passed the Senate: July 23, 1996 Signed by President Clinton: August 22, 1996. This bill…. ➡️ Killed the old “welfare forever” entitlement, replaced it with time-limited TANF, ➡️ Required work/job training. ➡️ Imposed a 5-year lifetime cap, ➡️ Strengthened child support enforcement ➡️ Restricted benefits for non-citizens. Democrats in Congress and the White House backed it. This is what sane, bipartisan governance used to look like: Leaders doing what most Americans wanted on work, responsibility, and fairness. THIS BILL WOULD NOT PASS TODAY COMPARE TO THE SAVE ACT AND LEGISLATION TODAY: It has up to 80% of support from everyday Americans. Americans are often less divided than Washington on “kitchen-table” issues like costs, security, infrastructure, and fairness. Yet many popular ideas stall in the Senate (filibuster, inaction) or get watered down. Studies find Congress passes laws that align with majority opinion only ~55–80% of the time, with popular bills frequently dying despite support. PRWORA and SAVE Act stand out because they cut through on accountability themes the public broadly wants. Our elected officials need to start listening to the people they are supposed to represent. There was a time where they did.

Common sense, bipartisanship, and compromise have been demonized by increasingly angry, militant political activists. Nuance has been lost. Problem solving has been replaced by symbolic acts of superficial political purity. It’s time for many childish, ambitious politicians to grow up.

@NotTheirScript And weren't many of those common sense provisions of law removed, or nulified during the Obama administration?