Jack Kingston: “here is the situation with welfare reform, Mr. Speaker. We passed welfare reform at a time when there were 14 million…”

“here is the situation with welfare reform, Mr. Speaker. We passed welfare reform at a time when there were 14 million people on welfare. At that time, we were called all kinds of names, and they were saying it was heartless and we were mean-spirited and everything else and that these folks were unable to help themselves. What is interesting is in 1996 when we passed welfare reform, we had 14 million people on welfare. Today, that number is down to 5 million people, too high; but we need to continue working on that. The 9 million people are now tax paying, working, enjoying the opportunity, sharing in the American Dream. They are glad that we passed welfare reform. There is a component in this that the Democrats are proposing which is simply welfare, and I think there may be some merit in that. I have no trouble at all in a healthy discussion on tinkering with welfare reform. This is good for everybody, but what our tax package was about was creating jobs, and we are going to continue to be the party of welfare reform, jobs and opportunity.”