Political Quotes

“States under the Dole proposals I suspect--I am sure they are going to be wanting to do what they can in child care, but I suspect they are also going to weigh the cost of doing that, through whatever mechanism they have to do it, either by cutting spending in other areas or raising taxes, and the penalties imposed upon them if they do not meet the criteria of the legislation regarding a certain percentage of the welfare recipients going to work. They will decide which they would rather do, pay the penalty, which I presume would be lower--I do not know exactly, but I suspect it is lower than what it would be to come up with the resources to see to it that the welfare recipient makes the transition. That is one of my concerns here. So we will end up with States paying the penalties in some cases because it is cheaper to pay the penalties than it is to meet that criteria, or that race to the bottom approach where they will say: Look, we are going to lower this thing so that people will not stay around in this State and they will find some other State, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, some other place to go to, so you will have a competition as to who will get this thing done and we have another national problem.”