Brian Bilbray: “In San Diego, this has been a real tough battle for almost two decades now where San Diego County has a welfare system…”

“In San Diego, this has been a real tough battle for almost two decades now where San Diego County has a welfare system larger than 32 States of the Union. It is 2.6 million with a very large welfare problem. And every time we try to do something, the Federal Government was always in the way of the people of San Diego trying to reform and restructure this. And in fact, I point out that in 1978, the people in San Diego were called ruthless and heartless and cruel because they came up with a radical idea, they said, that was cruel called ``workfare,'' in 1978. And just the last few years, to show you how frustrating it is working with the Federal Government, when you are trying to make some sanity out of this situation, that when we found there was welfare fraud, we realized we wanted to put a picture ID on a welfare card. And Federal agents were saying, we do not think you can do that because we think it may violate the privacy of the welfare recipient. I have to say that any person who truly is in need, any person who really wants to participate in a good program would obviously not be opposed to having their picture on the welfare card.”