BY WESLEY P. HESTER
Welfare is at the focus of a new TV ad from GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee airing in Virginia and other key battleground states.
The ad, titled “Right Choice,” starts by giving kudos to President Bill Clinton and congress for enacting welfare reform in 1996 by requiring “work for welfare.” But it quickly pivots to an attack on President Barack Obama.
“But on July 12th, President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements,” the narrator says. “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check. And welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare.”
The ad closes: “Mitt Romney will restore the work requirement because it works.”
On the same day the ad was released, PolitiFact.com debunked the assertion that “under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” The fact-checking unit gave the claim a “Pants on Fire.”
“In the latest example of Mitt Romney not telling the truth, he falsely attacks the president for weakening welfare to work requirements,” responded Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. “The truth is that the president is giving states additional flexibility only if they move more people from welfare to work –- not fewer.”
Over the weekend, the Romney campaign released two other new ads focused on the nation’s unemployment rate and its relationship with Israel. See them here, and here.
