Mark Souder: “one thing we need to clarify right off the bat is what the intent of the Founding Fathers was, in fact, in religion; and…”

“one thing we need to clarify right off the bat is what the intent of the Founding Fathers was, in fact, in religion; and this bill does not go near that far. In fact, the Founding Fathers printed twice copies of Bibles to be distributed in American schools because there was a shortage of Bibles, and they printed them with taxpayer dollars. This bill does not do that. Furthermore, anybody in this House gallery can see of all the lawgivers, one is looking down at us. It is Moses, and he is looking down at ``In God We Trust.'' But this bill does not go that far. It does not mandate that everybody be in a Chamber that says ``In God We Trust.'' It gives some flexibility as we try to address the problems of the cities of this country and the low-income areas of this country. Problems which are heavily rooted in economics, and this bill has wonderful things in economics but are also matters of how to reach the soul, how to reach the families, how to help people who are hurting, who are broken, who are hungry, who are struggling with drug and alcohol abuse, and this bill does open that. The question was raised, have we debated it in this House? We have debated it in this House five times. We passed it in welfare reform, we passed it in social services reform, both signed by the President. We passed it in juvenile justice; we passed it in housing. Every time this House has passed this bill. Every time we debated it.”