Mike Levin: “the American dream is not to live in poverty; the American dream is working, and working out of poverty. There is a…”

“the American dream is not to live in poverty; the American dream is working, and working out of poverty. There is a basic fact: huge numbers of women who have moved from welfare to work remain in poverty. And this bill restricts the flexibility of the States to tailor plans to help people move up the ladder, whether by education or by other means. The pivot of the rationale of the Republicans, that 58 percent of welfare recipients are not working, those figures are indeed more than questionable. The National Governors Association disagrees with it. And I urge everybody to go back to their States and look at the figures, the data behind those who are on welfare, how many have kids with disabilities, how many have other problems, so we see what the reality is. Quickly, child care. I do not know how you on the majority side stand up and say you are for adequate child care when it is only $2 billion; CBO says it is billions inadequate. If we take into account inflation, it is $5 billion to $6 billion inadequate. How do you say that? Mr. Chairman, $1 billion is so inadequate that only it is mandatory and $1 billion is discretionary, if appropriated. It is a smoke screen. And then this figure of $16,000 TANF per family. That is not only fuzzy math, that is phony math, because it includes all the child care for all working families, allocated or ascribed to people who are on TANF.”