Sam Farr: “Everybody in this Congress wants welfare reform. That is not the debate. But not everybody in the Congress wants to…”

“Everybody in this Congress wants welfare reform. That is not the debate. But not everybody in the Congress wants to shift the cost from Federal Government to local government. We usually ask ourselves as lawmakers to look before we leap. I do not think we have done that here on the welfare reform bill. We have asked to be quoted by Governors, but Governors do not administer welfare, communities do. Counties and cities do. Has anyone asked the mayors and county supervisors? Well, I did. In California we are going to shift 230,000 people who are legal residents of the United States who are disabled. They are cut off. They live in our community. Where are they going to go? What will this bill do to help them? This bill goes on. It hurts the people in our neighborhoods, people who go to school with our children. What can we do with a bill that hurts children, that hurts the disabled, that hurts the elderly? In the Congress of the richest Nation in the world, what we can do is vote 'no' on this bill and say we can do a better job. We want welfare reform, but a welfare reform bill that just plows the problem on the community is not reform at all. I ask for a 'no' vote.”