Lynn C. Woolsey: “I would like to inform the last speaker that the unfunded mandate in this bill would cost the State of Texas about $688…”

“I would like to inform the last speaker that the unfunded mandate in this bill would cost the State of Texas about $688 million and Texas has 37,000 children on their child care waiting list. This Republican bill does not reform welfare. It deforms welfare. H.R. 4737 pushes more low income parents into low paying workfare jobs while making it impossible for them to get the education they need to actually prepare themselves for jobs that pay a liveable wage, jobs that they can support their families on. H.R. 4737 doubles the number of hours that mothers and children under the age of 6 will have to work each week and, even worse, this bill does not adequately fund child care for the children of all the new working parents that are going to have to go into the working world. Mr. Speaker, I was a welfare mother 35 years ago. My children were 1, 3 and 5 years old. It was bad enough that their father abandoned us, but the worst thing about the whole situation was trying to get adequate child care. We had 13 different child care situations the first 12 months that I went to work. That was the hell year of our lives, and I am going to tell you, it is a miracle that my children are so wonderful. But it was not until our child care situation settled down, and my mother came to our town to take care of them that my job grew. Within a year of having stable child care, I became an executive at the company that I was working for.”