Lynn C. Woolsey: “I would like to thank Representative Mink and Representative Owens for organizing this special order on welfare reform…”

“I would like to thank Representative Mink and Representative Owens for organizing this special order on welfare reform today, and I look forward to participating in an ongoing dialogue and discussion about the essential elements of welfare reform, especially with an emphasis on how reform will affect women and their children. I have often said that, in order to have effective welfare reform, other social support services must be in place both to prevent the need to go on welfare in the first place, and to help recipients get off and stay off for good. Those services include health care, child care, transportation, jobs that pay a family wage, and child support enforcement. Today, I would like to focus on our Nation's child support system and how important the quality of child support enforcement is to truly effective welfare reform. The simple fact is that we cannot have true welfare reform without dramatically improving our child support system. Mr. Speaker, of the $47 billion owed in child support each year, only $13 billion is collected, leaving a $34 billion gap between what is owed, and what is paid, to support our children. That $34 billion gap is a national disgrace, which is punishing our children and bankrupting our welfare system. I have introduced legislation to fundamentally change the child support collection system in the United States.”