Bob Dole: “I do not know quite what this amendment does. Well, it does not do anything; that is what it does. I have been a member…”

“I do not know quite what this amendment does. Well, it does not do anything; that is what it does. I have been a member of the Nutrition Committee for years. I worked with Senator McGovern from South Dakota. We repealed the requirements of the food stamp law that require people to put up money, and things of that kind. It may have been a mistake. We thought we were doing the right thing. We worked a lot on the nutrition and school lunch programs and WIC programs. I do not know that we can pass laws here that say--I do not know who will count these people every day, or every week, or every month. We do not know, if the law is passed, what the economy is going to be. This all ought to be discussed when we have the budget before us. We are talking about dollars here, because there is no way we are going to be able to tell, if the law passes, whether somebody would be hungry in America or one more might be hungry. That is the import of this, even though it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is not binding. We are trying to cover Congress here with all the laws we inflict on everybody else in America. We have had a dozen amendments that have nothing to do with that at all. The American people want us to be an example, not part of the problem. We will be an example if we cover ourselves with laws that we inflict on small businessmen and women in Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Vermont, Pennsylvania, or wherever it may be.”