Nancy Kassebaum: “I would just point out that California gets twice what any other State gets. The closest States to California are New…”

“I would just point out that California gets twice what any other State gets. The closest States to California are New York and Texas. So while California has a large population, a population that has many needs, it also is a population that is getting a significant amount in this formula. No one knows better than the Senator from California how difficult these formula debates are. We all want to get as much as we can. I think that when we are taking formulas from some 80 programs and combining them into one formula, that will be the fairest to most States, it obviously is not an easy task. But we made 60 percent of the formula focus on population, which I think is the fairest way to distribute funds among the States. And the Senator from California has already pointed out 20 percent is based on poverty, 10 percent is based on the number of welfare recipients and 10 percent is based on employment. I would also suggest that we are going to be continuing to reduce appropriations to each of the various programs.”