Political Quotes

“I could not have stated this case more emphatically, with more clarity and more charity than the Senator from New Mexico. We are talking about children who do not have any control over when they come into the world or in what circumstances. I would want to make one point. It need not be made in the Senate Chamber, but just for the record. There is a notion that somehow welfare families are large. They are not. They are smaller than the average, husband-and-wife family. The average number of children is 1.9. They begin too early. They begin without the arrangements that need to accompany, ought to accompany, the beginning of a family, a stable husband-wife relationship. Children born to these single women in poverty do poorly the rest of their lives, by and large. We know so little about why all this has happened. There are efforts abroad to change this culture of dependency, to get the mothers on welfare off the rolls and into work. We have heard one Senator after another describing the programs in place in their States--Iowa, California, Georgia, Michigan--under the Family Support Act, in which States do what they think best and experiment. But do not put the lives of children at risk in this way. Or at least do not do it because the Federal Government says you have to. That would be unpardonable.”