Sam Gibbons: “Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all that there are some good things in this legislation that could have and should have…”

“Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all that there are some good things in this legislation that could have and should have become law without being tied to the rest of this fundamentally flawed package. The President has made a mistake in endorsing this legislation and the Congress will make a mistake in passing it. Essentially, Mr. Speaker, this legislation reduces assets that we need to help those who are the most vulnerable in our society. Seventy percent of all the people on welfare are infants and children. The rest are so disabled one way or another, and they cannot make a go of it. This bill reduces their assets, reduces the assets of the people who we are trying to help to improve and better their situation. For some reason that we do not thoroughly understand, the bottom three-fifths of all the people in the United States have not made any progress in the last 20 years, economically speaking. The bottom one-fifth have lost 18 percent of their resources that are available to them. This bill further exacerbates that problem and will hurt infants and children. It should not become law. It should be vetoed.”