Christopher Shays: “One comma, one little bracket, taking out a word, adding or not can make a difference. This Congress is looking to get…”

“One comma, one little bracket, taking out a word, adding or not can make a difference. This Congress is looking to get after all three types of welfare, the social, the corporate, and where it was in the farming. There are a few programs still remaining that did not get out, but a gigantic leap forward, phased out over 7 years. I would say to the gentleman that I had to ask myself where have I been a constructive force. And I have been able to go back over my time in the State house and in Congress and say, well, I voted for this program, and I have been able to feel good. But when I analyze some, not all, but some of those votes, I have had to say I have made people more dependent rather than less. I have made a practice in the last 4 years of asking people who have had to pull themselves up by the boot straps and have succeeded, why. And in almost every instance, it was a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a schoolteacher, but somebody pushing them, someone recognizing that and making sure that individual knew that nobody was going to do it for them. I was thinking, and, to me, one of the most memorable was when I had a young woman come in, 35 years old, a doctor, an M.D., and she said she was 12 years old when her father passed away. She had six younger brothers and sisters. She became almost the second mother in the family, raising, as a 12 year old, her younger brothers and sisters.”