Political Quotes

“I want to comment briefly this morning on welfare and Medicaid, because the majority leader has indicated that these are going to be two of his priorities after the recess. We are going to bring these bills to the floor in an effort to get them passed yet again and to get them signed by the President. It seems we are in a campaign mode now. Everyone is focused on the Presidential election. It does not seem like it was just 4 years ago that President--candidate then--Bill Clinton was going around the country saying we need to end welfare as we know it. People might ask what has happened in the last 4 years? The President seemed to be committing himself to ending welfare as we know it. Yet, during the first 2 years of his administration, when the Democrat Party controlled the House and Senate, nothing was done. When Republicans finally came in and it was part of the Contract With America, however, something did get done. We passed bills for welfare reform, and they not only reformed the essence of the welfare program to put more focus on people working, on providing incentives to families, and to reducing the costs of welfare, but also returned much of the decisionmaking to the States under the theory that the States and local governments would have more connection with the specific people on welfare and would know better how to run the programs for the benefit of the people in their individual States.”