Yet federal housing programs were untouched by the 1996 reforms. The failures of the old system are intact -- federal housing assistance is a one-way handout and recipients don’t have to work. Not surprisingly, the Census Bureau reports that 30% of households with children receiving federal housing aid don’t work at all and only a quarter of parents worked full-time (defined as 2,000 hours) through the year.

To Hensarling and other conservative lawmakers, the impact of requiring recipients of housing assistance to work for their benefit would be profound. As my colleague Robert Rector explains: “Once recipients are required to be continuously active rather than idle, they have a strong incentive to obtain employment. The indirect result is a surge in actual employment and a drop in poverty.”

Rep. Scott, though, sensed something sinister behind Hensarling’s effort to reduce poverty. “I understand messages,” he said mockingly, “and I understand this message” -- one aimed at those “who believe that certain people are categorized as wanting a handout, or that they are lazy, or that they do not want to work. So then the cry comes, before we can give them any help, make them work. Make them get a job.”

Sounds good to most Americans. Far from being a “fringe” position, reducing dependency on government programs is a mainstream American value. According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of Americans, including 61% of African-Americans, agree that “poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs.”

Though Hensarling’s effort fell short, it garnered a respectable 197 votes, including those of all but 6 Republicans and 13 mostly moderate Democrats.

Remarkably, a decade after the most successful domestic policy initiative in living memory, the race card remains in play. “When you run out of anything else to say,” Hensarling said, “you characterize someone else’s motivations and … use the term ‘bigoted.’ And that I regret.”