Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to take this time to talk about the reauthorization of welfare reform, the reform launched a half dozen years ago. The authorization for those reforms has expired once, has been renewed for a year, and will expire again at the end of this year. When Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992, he said a number of things for which he is remembered. He said: It is the economy, stupid. And it is always the economy, stupid, as far as I am concerned. But he also said we ought to change welfare as we know it. And we have. Welfare reform was very much needed in the mid-1990s. A lot of people who ended up on welfare stayed there for long periods of time. And one of the reasons why they stayed there for so long was because they and their families were better off being on welfare than not. If people on welfare went to work, they lost some things. They lost maybe health care for their kids, eligibility for food stamps, nutritional support for their families, affordable housing. They certainly had to pay more for affordable housing. And what would they gain by going to work and getting off welfare? The right to pay taxes: State income taxes, Federal income taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, and others. After losing those certain things and gaining the right to pay those taxes, they would have to deal with the costs included in childcare. Who is going to take care of my kids? How will I pay for it? How will I get to work? Is there transportation?”