Political Quotes

“I have been trying to make a point, as I said yesterday--I do not know that I can persuade anyone, but I can try to make it and I can argue-- which is the point that 30 years ago, we might have considered turning this subject back to the States, giving them block grants of some kind, saying, ``You handle it. Cities, you handle it. It makes some sense since local governments are closer to the problem. It is not that big a problem.'' It is today, in one after another jurisdiction, a problem that has overwhelmed the capacity of the city and the State. The Senator mentioned Philadelphia. In 1993, 57 percent of the children living in the city of Philadelphia were on AFDC, welfare, at one point in the course of the year. At any given moment, 44 percent-- these are numbers never contemplated. Nothing like that happened in the Great Depression. And these children are paupers. They are not from unemployed families, where there is a house, an automobile, some insurance.…”