Which president rewrote welfare legislation, giving increased authority and discretion to state and local government officials?

If popular reports and political attacks are any guide, President Obama’s second term has been marked by presidential policymaking and sharp state opposition. With Congress incapacitated by polarization, the President has turned to administrative action to achieve his goals, pushing his agenda on the nation under a justificatory “We Can’t Wait” mantra. Meanwhile, states have led the opposition to such executive action. Governors refuse to participate in Administration initiatives, and state attorneys general sue the federal executive branch for overreach in a variety of areas.

There is much truth to this account. Congress is gridlocked and unable to enact substantive laws on major policy issues. A number of political and structural factors contribute to legislative paralysis, but the widening ideological divide between the parties and the parties’ split control of Congress and the presidency are leading culprits. In the absence of congressional action, federal agencies have employed their powers assertively, often stretching, if not violating, underlying statutes ( Freeman and Spence 2014 ; Metzger 2015 ). And the White House has been closely involved in administrative initiatives, with the President publicly instructing agencies to act and claiming ownership of the resulting decisions ( Watts 2016 ). Examples of such presidentially instigated, assertive agency actions include the Department of Education’s grant of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, the Department of Homeland Security’s deferred action immigration programs, the Internal Revenue Service’s waiver of the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act ( ACA 2012 ), and the Clean Power Plan by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

LINK:  https://academic.oup.com/publius/article/46/3/308/1752741

usually her father was the one that controlled it after the death of the husband