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Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012 | 3:44 p.m.
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Gov. Brian Sandoval found himself in the middle of the latest White House campaign conflict on Tuesday, with a letter his administration wrote last year being used to defend the president against a Mitt Romney broadside.
Sandoval’s human services chief, Mike Willden, penned a letter last August (posted at right) in which he said Nevada is “very interested in working with your staff to explore program waivers …” on welfare (in Nevada, so-called TANF programs).
But after presidential spokesman Jay Carney invoked the Sandoval administration letter in today’s press briefing to help parry Romney’s charge that the administration was issuing a blank check without work requirements, the governor’s spokeswoman, Mary-Sarah Kinner told me, “Nevada hasn’t requested a waiver and has no intention of requesting one. As you’ve seen from the letter, Nevada HHS responded to U.S. HHS by providing comments on a solicitation with ideas to discuss. The letter was not a request for a waiver; it was a request to explore the possibilities."
Kinner also told POLITICO, “The Obama Administration's attempt to portray Nevada's comments as anything more than an attempt to increase efficiency and improve outcomes for our programs is a gross mischaracterization to advance its own agenda.” (Here’s the POLITICO story by Byron Tau.)
The White House loved that quote, as Carney provided me with this rejoinder: "We agree with the Sandoval Administration: any attempt to characterize this policy as 'as anything more than an attempt to increase efficiency and improve outcomes for our programs is a gross mischaracterization.'"
That is, Carney is saying: See, Mitt, Gov. Sandoval agrees with us that you are misrepresenting what we are trying to do.
It’s tough not to find this delicious as Sandoval is being used by the president to needle the guy the governor endorsed, albeit belatedly. But this is going to keep happening, I’d guess, to Sandoval. The governor is no rabid partisan — he has a hard time faking it — and instead sees himself as a problem-solver, as does the estimable Willden, who I’ve always thought would like to explore the possibility of waivers — as that August 2011 letter clearly indicates.
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Below is Carney’s invoking of Sandoval during the briefing:
Q: On a separate topic, the Romney campaign is out with a new ad accusing the president of gutting welfare reform, essentially saying that the administration has turned into a blank check for states without any work requirements. From a policy standpoint, does the White House feel that offering these states this flexibility has somehow undermined the work requirement?
MR. CARNEY: From a policy standpoint, let me say that this advertisement is categorically false and it is blatantly dishonest. This administration’s policy will strengthen the program by giving states the opportunity to employ more effective ways to help people get off welfare and into a job. Under this policy, governors must commit that their proposals will move at least 20 percent more people — more people — from welfare to work. And as we have made very clear under our policy, any request from any state that undercuts the work requirement in welfare reform will be rejected.
Now, the ad is particularly outrageous as Governor Romney himself, with 28 other Republican governors, supported policies that would have eliminated the time limits in the welfare reform law and allowed people to stay on welfare forever. Those are not standards the President supports.
It is also worth remembering that this waiver policy that we’re discussing was specifically requested by two Republican governors — Governor Herbert of Utah and Governor Sandoval of Nevada — two men, I think you know, who are supporters of Governor Romney. And I don’t think if you ask them — and I suggest you do — that they believe that their interest in these waivers was guided by a desire to undermine work requirements. Their interest in these waivers was to achieve more flexibility for their states, to innovate and to move more people from work to welfare [welfare to work]. That’s the purpose of this policy.
We need jobs and a change of the person in the White House. Obama has not done much for the citizens of Nevada.
So here we have it; a draft-dodging, money hiding tax cheat of a candidate....and a president who's every attempt to help the American middle class has been thwarted by a congress who has stalled, filibustered, and outright obliterated every bill Obama has presented to them.....you cannot tell me this country does not have a racist congress. These hacks rolled over for Bush and gave him EVERYTHING he wanted; including support for two illegal usurpations, that congress continues to make BILLIONS from.
Do your homework guys before you accept ANYTHING Romney says; Obama's policies were not failed ones, congress failed to support Obama, congress have put their own pocketbooks ahead of the welfare of Americans, and ARE right on the brink of treasonous conduct.
Read your United States history guys before you assume the worst without doing some research. The info is out there.....you just need to do the homework, and actually READ something for a change instead of accepting somebody's word for it.
Harry Reid already knocked out Romney with a hard
right hand and Romney went down like a ton of
bricks.
Romney can't recover from that.
His tax hiding finished him off.
FOUR MORE YEARS FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!
NVfisherman.....
Romney is WORSE than bush.
Sandoval should resign at once, he has once again failed the state by letting welfare mothers run wild in the streets and hatching out babies who are born addicted to food stamps.
Pay your taxes Romney. Romney should be in jail!
Truly amazing the ignorance here. Romney should be in jail? Reid knocked Romney out?
Oh, Jennifer, the first 2 years of Obama, he had majorities in both houses. They passed everything he wanted. And things have continues to get worse. It's easy (and ignorant) to cry "racism" when you don't get your way. It's also incorrect.
Ya well Obama would do himself well to grow a pair IMHO. He has tools, use them. Course that will never happen.
In the end both of these receptionists are basically Banker proxies, as is most of Congress. That is who they work for. The reason little gets done for the public is because they don't work for us, duh.
Zero percent interest rates for going on 3 yrs and the only people who can legitimately borrow (at those rates) are bankers. The public is given rates 10-20 times that and they simply pay it like the sheep they are. Want to start a business? good luck Joe! how bout the good borrower rate of 10% on your car loan sir? want to refi your house? sure how bout the bit*hin rate which is four times what we borrow ours for homeowner?
People are so dumb it is amazing. They take .25 percent on their savings and run credit card balances with rates between 12 and 30%! Do they LIKE being bent over? must do.
People are being openly robbed and they all sit there watching America's Got Talent. What a pathetic bunch of donkeys.