Xavier Becerra: “Mr. Speaker, if there is one clarion call that we should hear in this Congress when it comes to reforming welfare, it…”

“Mr. Speaker, if there is one clarion call that we should hear in this Congress when it comes to reforming welfare, it should be: Hold our children harmless. We can disagree on a lot of things, but I think one thing is clear: None of us intends to put children in worse condition by reforming welfare. Yet we still have an issue. The Republican welfare bill that passed in this House would send 1.5 million children into poverty. It would increase the level of poverty for those children already existing without enough. Why would we want, as this bill does, to deny a child who lives in a home where there is domestic violence the opportunity to escape that home? Why would we want to deny more than 300,000 children who exist with a disability the opportunity to try to have the same opportunity as any other child? Why would we want to deny a child who is hungry the opportunity through food stamps to be nourished? I do not think we want to do that, and I believe on a bipartisan basis we can get there.”