Poverty and Homelessness: What is your position on the welfare reform policies enacted under President Clinton in 1996 and future welfare spending?
Wesley Clark: The 1996 welfare reform effort succeeded in certain respects, but it failed in others. I believe it's not enough to pressure people off the welfare rolls; we also have to offer poor people the opportunity to succeed: good jobs, affordable healthcare, and access to quality childcare and transportation.
The pre-1996 welfare system was broken and needed fixing. I applaud the success of the system in reducing the welfare rolls and increasing work among welfare recipients, but the system needs to be improved.
We need to empower states to do more to assist welfare recipients in transitioning from welfare to work by providing job training, health care, childcare, and education.
The best plan to combat poverty is a plan to create jobs. I've got a plan to grow the economy, create jobs and send more Americans to college.
We've also got to make work pay. As president I'll work to raise the minimum wage to $7 by 2007. And I support increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has proven to be a powerful tool to decrease poverty.
On Homelessness
Howard Dean: I support work requirements and supports like childcare. I know that real welfare reform is not cheap and requires investment in supportive services to help parents move from welfare to work and to support low-income families.
John Edwards: The success of welfare to work is encouraging. However, many people are now facing a tough job market and we cannot take our progress for granted. We should give low-income Americans a shot at success through education, training, and childcare. We also need to help fathers find jobs and make sure they pay child support.
We should ensure affordable childcare, quality education and training to help people get out of dead-end jobs, and offer them additional tax credits to help them save and get ahead.
We need to involve fathers. There is a growing divide between women who are taking responsibility and men who are not. I will help fathers find good jobs and require them to pay child support.
We need to stop children from having children. The teen pregnancy rate in America is one of the worst in the developed world, and the children of teenagers are far less likely to graduate from high school and far more likely to end up on welfare.
We should invest in what works in fighting teen pregnancy, including community service programs, home visits to teen girls, and a national media campaign.
On Homelessness
I support a strong safety net for homeless families, and we also must address the root causes of homelessness such as substance abuse and mental illnesses.
I will double federal funding for health centers, which are the settings most likely to treat homeless Americans.
John Kerry: I supported the '96 welfare reform law because I thought we needed to take a bold step to help people move from welfare to work. The law wasn't perfect. I'll improve it by making sure parents have the work supports they need � like health care and child care.
There have been some positive results from welfare reform. Millions of families moved from welfare to work. More parents are getting the training and child care they need.
The '96 law wasn't perfect. We need to finish the job restoring benefits to legal immigrants and make more opportunities available for education and training.
I'll continue the job on welfare reform � making sure parents have the health care and child care to move from welfare to work.
Children should have two involved, supportive parents in their lives. We need to help more fathers get the skills they need to help children.
The Bush administration's welfare proposal threatens to undo the success of the '96 law by mandating tougher work requirements without investments in critical work supports like child care. Our priorities for welfare reauthorization should be rewarding and supporting work.
On Homelessness
