To my mind, one of the worst things Clinton did during his time in office was the huge hole he sliced in our social safety net in 1996. It's not that I think welfare as it then existed did not need reform, but turning it into a time-limited program was less a reform than a gutting of its fundamental premises. The recessions since then have been fairly mild, so this will be the first time we might see large numbers of people running into those time limits. It could get ugly.