Lucille Roybal-Allard: “today we are debating a budget spending bill that violates the budget agreement and takes away some of the hope and…”

“today we are debating a budget spending bill that violates the budget agreement and takes away some of the hope and promise built into the original agreement. First, the President and congressional leaders guaranteed $16 billion in health care coverage for 5 million uninsured children in our Nation. The bill before us takes away that guarantee and creates a large block grant that could result in untargeted revenue sharing. In other words, the money does not have to be used to cover uninsured children. Second, welfare reform was to provide a way for able-bodied adults to earn a living and free themselves from the dependency of welfare. Instead, this bill stigmatizes them and strips them of their self-esteem by eliminating workplace protections enjoyed by other American workers, protections such as overtime pay, OSHA, and the Civil Rights Act that protects working Americans from employment discrimination and sexual harassment. This is a frightening thought when we consider that the majority of welfare-to-work recipients will be women, the most vulnerable to this type of discrimination. At a time when we are encouraging people to choose work over welfare, it is unconscionable to create a hostile work environment for these welfare-to-work recipients by undermining workplace standards.”