Political Quotes

“let me pick up on the last point that the Senator from Massachusetts raised. He may have made it before I walked onto the floor. He pointed out the waiting lists that exist in the States for child care slots today, before we pass a welfare reform bill. There is just tremendous demand today. What we are talking about--this bill, of course--is taking anywhere from 1 to 2 million people and moving them over the next 5 years from welfare to work. If we do not provide additional resources, then there will be increased pressure on existing dollars that go to those who are getting the child care today. It is worthwhile to point out that the people who get child care today under the child care development block grant, that Senator Hatch and I passed in 1990, are working poor. Those are people at work right now. That child care assistance makes it possible for them to stay in the work force and not slip into a public assistance category. The fear that many of us have here, is that without some additional resources, as we move people who are on welfare today to work, the people out working today and staying at work, getting some of that assistance, those resources are going to have to be shifted in the State in order to accommodate the demands of this bill or face the penalties the bill imposes on the States if the States do not move the 25 to 50 percent of the welfare recipients on their rolls to work.”