James M. Jeffords: “I rise in support of the Breaux amendment. I listened to the very eloquent and excellent statement of the former…”

“I rise in support of the Breaux amendment. I listened to the very eloquent and excellent statement of the former Governor of Missouri, and there is no question in my mind that if all the Governors of this Nation were like the former Governor of Missouri, we might not need this amendment. My memory goes back to the 1960's, when we started the welfare reform. It was because there were many areas of this Nation where the States dropped the ball with their responsibility on welfare, and the Federal Government came in to try to get some uniformity of standards in the ability to take care of the people of this country who were unable to take care of themselves or needed help in getting into a position where they could do so. I point out that in the Breaux amendment here, we are dollar for dollar, not percentage. So you could eliminate all your State moneys and, in many cases, end up with plenty of Federal funds left, so you are only going down dollar for dollar. I think that is an important concession to those of us who want to see this; that is, not to go over the formula reduction, so if they go down 1 percent, we go down 1 percent. It is a modest proposal in that respect. Second, the 90 percent is, I think, a reasonable figure to utilize. It does allow some drop in State effort, without losing Federal funds. I would like to also emphasize how critically important this amendment is to some of us who want to reach a consensus on welfare reform.”