Mark Souder: “People on welfare currently can get a package of benefits, depending on their mix of kids, about $15,000. When they take…”

“People on welfare currently can get a package of benefits, depending on their mix of kids, about $15,000. When they take a job, under the new welfare bill, should the benefits that they are continuing to receive, because we have decided that we are not going to completely cut off the benefits, should those benefits count towards their wages? This is being portrayed as the work cutting the minimum wage, when in fact what we are saying is people who are working for the minimum wage currently and have never been on welfare should not receive up to $7,000 a year less than those people on welfare. Yet somehow we are portrayed as the mean party. Somehow we are portrayed as being unfair and being mean-spirited when in fact what we have been trying to do is stand up for the working people of America to try to give tax benefits to try to help those people who have been trapped in the welfare system start to move into the private sector but not have these terrible inequities between those people who have been working and those people who are on welfare.”