Political Quotes

“I cannot thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw] enough. At a time when somebody had to listen, he did. We do not always do that in this building, and it is just a tremendous honor to him that we are passing this bill today. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee, Congressman John Tanner, not a finer person to work with I know in the House, who acted in a bipartisan way when I think we needed that in order to bring this bill into line. I thank the President, who I understand is going to sign this legislation. I believe he is doing the right thing for a variety of reasons. I believe the safety net was put back into place that we have talked about in several ways in the area of Medicaid, food stamps, and the ability of States to set up voucher systems after 5 years. I think they can deal with that. I have believed strongly, in my fight for welfare reform for 12 years now, that this is the opportunity. Everyone talks about this in a very draconian sense. I believe this is opportunity for women, for children, in some instances for men, and for families. It is opportunity because we are going to take people who have not had a true chance to live the American life in terms of their education and background and we are giving them that chance. It is an experiment. We may have to come back to it, but I congratulate everybody.”