Rep. Corrine Brown: “this was a bad House bill, a bad Senate bill and the conference report did not fix it. It is still bad. You can judge a…”

“this was a bad House bill, a bad Senate bill and the conference report did not fix it. It is still bad. You can judge a great society by how it treats its children, its senior citizens. This bill guts our future. I urge my colleagues to vote against it. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this conference report. The House welfare reform bill was a bad bill, the Senate bill was a bad bill and the conference report does not fix it. This legislation is so bad that it can't be fixed. This bill will have a horrible impact on the children in my State. In Florida, at least 235,000 children would be denied benefits under this legislation. In Florida alone, 48,000 would be pushed deeper into poverty. Children will be hungrier if this bill becomes law. In Florida, 111,926 children would be denied aid in the year 2005 because of the 5 year time limit. In Florida, 42,714 babies would be denied cash aid in the year 2000 because they were born to families already on welfare. In the year 2000, 80,667 children in Florida would be denied benefits if the State froze its spending on cash assistance at the 1994 levels. In addition to the travesty this bill does to our children, this bill will pull the rug out from under our seniors who are legal immigrants. For a State like Florida whose population has such a large number of legal immigrants, the impact will be extremely high.”