Bill Clinton was the first president to discuss Welfare Reform and pass a Welfare Reform bill while president.
He took a conservative approach and was hammered for it by the left:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930203&slug=1683398
Welfare: `Second Chance, Not Way Of Life' -- Clinton Promises Governors He'll Push For Overhaul
By Ruth Marcus
WASHINGTON - President Clinton pledged yesterday to work for reform that ensures welfare is "a second chance, not a way of life."
Clinton's address to the National Governors Association allowed the president to shift public attention from such incendiary issues as homosexuals in the military toward more politically friendly territory, such as his economic proposals and health-care reform.
Clinton was scheduled to meet at the White House today with a delegation of congressional leaders to discuss campaign-finance reform, another issue he identified as a priority during the campaign.
The president laid the groundwork for that yesterday when he traveled to Capitol Hill and discussed campaign-finance reform in a meeting with the congressional leadership that also focused on his economic plans and the family and medical leave bill.
Clinton's speech on welfare largely restated the broad themes and specific proposals he outlined during the campaign. Clinton would expand job training and education programs for recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children and increase the earned-income tax credit to supplement the incomes of the working poor.
Most recipients would be limited to two years of eligibility in the AFDC program, which has grown from 3.5 million families in 1976 and 3.7 million in 1988 to 4.7 million last year. After the two years, they would be required to take jobs either in the private or public sectors.
"No one likes the welfare system as it currently exists, least of all the people who are on it," Clinton said. "The taxpayers, the social-service employees themselves don't think much of it, either. Most people on welfare are yearning for another alternative, aching for the chance to move from dependence to dignity. And we owe it to them to give them that chance. . . .
"I believe two years after a training program is completed, you have to ask people to take a job, ultimately, either in the private sector or in public service," Clinton said yesterday.
During the campaign, Clinton estimated that his program would cost $4 billion for the welfare reform proposals and $2 billion for the earned-income tax credit.