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Bill Weld on Welfare & Poverty
Libertarian Party nominee for Vice Pres.; former GOP MA Governor; 2020 GOP Presidential Challenger
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Greatly increase the earned income tax credit
On taxes:- He supports tax cuts, implementing more than a dozen during his time as governor.
- Weld wants to increase tax credits for lower-income Americans. "One thing I did do as governor in Massachusetts was to greatly increase the earned
income tax credit, which helps the working poor. I probably would do more of that because we don't need to have people making $29,000 a year who have a family. If that sounds like attacking income inequality, that's because it is," Weld told Vox.
Source: Business Insider background for 2019 GOP presidential debate
, Sep 24, 2019
Have private sector take over social services
There's a huge opportunity to cut federal spending by contracting out the provision of social services to the private sector, particularly the vast network of non-profit organizations.
Based on our experience in Massachusetts, this will save a great deal of taxpayers' money and improve the quality of the services and the degree of compassion and dignity afforded to the people receiving the services.
The reason is that monopoly services are always less efficient than competitively priced services.
So the key distinction is not public versus private: it's monopoly versus competition.
Source: Speech in New Hampshire by 2020 presidential hopefuls
, Feb 15, 2019
Instituted work requirements for welfare recipients
As governor of Massachusetts he cut taxes sixteen times, balanced the budget annually, pursued privatization, and vetoed minimum wage increases. Although he grew progressively slacker on spending as his tenure wore on, Weld's first budget actually
reduced expenditures below the previous year's level. Hardly a Rockefeller Republican, he instituted work requirements for welfare recipients before the 1996 federal reform legislation and boasted that on taxes he was "a filthy supply-sider."
Source: American Spectator, "Understanding Bill Weld"
, Aug 25, 2005
Wage all-out war on culture of welfare dependency
Kerry wasted no time in attacking the Republican's stance on welfare, one of the issues that the governor prides himself on. Portraying Weld as a callous politician,
Kerry accused him of making "a political career out of picking on people on welfare" and called the governor's standards for welfare "Draconian."
"You spend more time beating up on welfare recipients than you do on finding plans to cover them," Kerry added.
Weld angrily defended welfare reform policy as the only measure that would eliminate poverty and
the welfare mentality. "We have to wage an all-out war on fatherlessness and the culture of welfare dependency," Weld said.
Source: Harvard Crimson on Kerry/Weld debates
, Apr 9, 1996
Page last updated: Feb 25, 2020