Mark Souder: “I rise completely opposed to this amendment, which is basically a masquerade to go back to the days of old when you…”

“I rise completely opposed to this amendment, which is basically a masquerade to go back to the days of old when you could stay in school forever. You could not take a job unless it paid just the amount you wanted, even though many people take jobs right at the poverty line or just above. They work hard and they pay their taxes. But, no, this bill would enable them to stay and say, oh, I do not want that job, it does not pay quite enough. The way an individual moves up in the workplace is to get an entry level job and ask, how do I move to the next level, get training to move to the next level? It is not going to college forever; it is focused. But I rise as chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform to object to another provision of this. This goes back to the old days again, where we say people who take tax dollars from hard-working Americans, many who are struggling along the poverty line, who chose to work rather than take welfare and follow the laws, that this bill would say, if you are convicted of a drug crime, you are still entitled to the money from those who have been working, from those who have been following the laws.”