Tom Tancredo: “This legislation, or this proposal, I suppose, and the opposition to this motion has been characterized as anti-Latino…”

“This legislation, or this proposal, I suppose, and the opposition to this motion has been characterized as anti-Latino and anti-family. Well, in a way I would suggest that it is an insult to suggest to anyone that in fact if you are doing something here to reform welfare, that the only people who would benefit by overexposure to welfare, give out more welfare, are Latinos. That, of course, I think is an insult to Latinos. In fact, I believe everything we do to try to stop the expansion of welfare, especially, in this case, food stamps, we are doing as a pro-family activity. I will tell the Members why I believe that. The welfare law, the reform law of 1996 to which I referred earlier, replaced AFDC with a brand new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, often referred to around here as TANF. This reform has been widely acknowledged, once again I say, widely acknowledged by both opponents of it originally and its supporters as a tremendous success leading to a dramatic drop in dependence and child poverty. Hear that: The TANF is an improvement, a reform of the system; something that had work requirements ingrained in it, something that had a number of other activities that were required before a recipient could get help. That improvement had a dramatic drop in dependence, a dramatic drop in child poverty, increases in employment, and it slowed down the growth of out-of-wedlock childbearing.”