Mike Levin: “I favor this legislation. I want, though, the record to be clear as to why we are where we are today. Way back, it seems…”

“I favor this legislation. I want, though, the record to be clear as to why we are where we are today. Way back, it seems like many years ago, we passed welfare reform. It was not an easy journey. There were differences of opinion. President Clinton had urged that we reform welfare. There were differing views as to how to do that. We did work on a bipartisan basis. It was not easy. President Clinton vetoed, in essence, the first two because of inadequate attention to child care and to health care, and that pressured us to continue to find a bipartisan answer. And I mean bipartisan in the sense that there was strong adequate support from both sides of the aisle, even though there remained some differences. And it became law. And I think the record is that it basically worked. It was a positive step forward. It worked in the sense that many, many millions of people moved off of welfare into work. And that was good for them, it was good for their families, and it was really good for the country. However, the fact remained, and we do not have all the data, in part because the Congress did not provide enough money to follow this, despite our efforts to do so, but I think the data are pretty clear that while millions moved off of welfare, a very substantial number of them, while working, remained in poverty. So the question became: What next with welfare reform? How do we make it even more effective for the people on welfare who want to move off?”