Kendrick Meek: “this welfare reform rule should be defeated in that there is really no reformation of welfare here. There are just some…”

“this welfare reform rule should be defeated in that there is really no reformation of welfare here. There are just some glib statements of people who would not know a poor person if they saw them walk by them tonight. They need to get into the shoes of poor people. Then they can realize that this bill does nothing to increase self-sufficiency of poor people. We use a lot of buzz words here in the Congress. We keep talking about self-sufficiency. You do not find it here. None of your welfare reform bills or your welfare programs have brought self-sufficiency, because the people you say will be out of poverty are still in poverty. You are not meeting the child care needs. The children are getting poorer and poorer. Poverty resides just away from here, not two blocks from here. Yet you cannot realize that this bill does nothing to address self-sufficiency. In 1999 in the middle of the economic boom, ex-welfare recipients who worked earned an average of nearly $7,200 a year, approximately $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. Think of that. Nearly one out of five children in the United States are still living in poverty. And we are here in this great land, we are able to give away money to everyone; but we cannot look down to the least of those, our small children who need help in this country. Poverty is not so that we cannot overcome it. Other governments have tried it. Why is it that our government is so bitterly opposed to helping poor people?”