Dear Editor,

In GOP lacks recognition for effort, Joseph Brown claims that President Obama removed the work requirements from the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. This claim is patently false.

This is what happened: a half-dozen states, some with Republican governors, asked for more flexibility in their decision to grant assistance to people in need. The purpose was to experiment with ways to provide jobs to welfare recipients and to reduce the amount of federal paperwork and bureaucracy. The Obama administration agreed that the states would have flexibility in managing their welfare rolls as long as it, produced 20 percent increases in the number of people getting work.

This work requirement canard has been repeated ad nauseam by Mitt Romney since August. It has also been demonstrated to be a lie by numerous fact-check organizations. Its time to put this falsehood to rest.

Joseph A. Sullivan

East Brunswick, N.J.