Mitt Romney in January at a campaign event said that mothers on welfare with children older than two should be forced to get a job outside the home or lose their government benefits, which flies as the flag of extreme hypocrisy given Mitt and Ann Romney‘s apparently faux outrage one comments made by Hilary Rosen the past week.
“I also like the idea that people receiving assistance, welfare assistance, have the responsibility of working,” the presidential candidate said, and added he thinks parents on welfare should “have the dignity of work” — or have, apparently, the “dignity” of not receiving TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits.
Romney made the comments with former GOP presidential candidate John McCain by his side.
Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Pr0gress notes:
But this is worse than hypocritical because there is a clear difference here — women who receive welfare benefits, the ones Romney wants to force to work, are poor, while Romney’s wife is very wealthy. And this exactly the point CNN contributor Hillary Rosen was trying to make, inartfully, when she sparked this controversy. Ann Romney had the luxury of choosing to devote herself full time to raising her children. It’s hard work, no doubt, but millions of mothers are forced to work and raise their kids at the same time, as Romney says he wants to require poor women on government benefits to do.
The Huffington Post reports:
The remark, made to a Manchester, N.H., audience, was unearthed by MSNBC’s “Up w/Chris Hayes,” and aired during the 8 a.m. hour of his show Sunday.
Ann Romney and her husband’s campaign fired back hard at Rosen following her remark. “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work,” Romney said on Twitter.
On Sunday, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg told The Huffington Post in an email, “Moving welfare recipients into work was one of the basic principles of the bipartisan welfare reform legislation that President Clinton signed into law. The sad fact is that under President Obama the poverty rate among women rose to 14.5 percent in 2011, the highest rate in 17 years. The Obama administration’s economic policies have been devastating to women and families.”
Mitt Romney, however, judging by his January remark, views stay-at-home moms who are supported by federal assistance much differently than those backed by hundreds of millions in private equity income. Poor women, he said, shouldn’t be given a choice, but instead should be required to work outside the home to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits. “[E]ven if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work,” Romney said of moms on TANF.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
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