Dave Camp: “the 1996 welfare law, which many of us here helped write, really brought us unparalleled success by almost any measure.…”

“the 1996 welfare law, which many of us here helped write, really brought us unparalleled success by almost any measure. If we look at the fact that more parents are working, child poverty has declined sharply, dependence has declined dramatically, there is a 60 percent decrease in the case loads of welfare recipients. This bill today builds on that success and improves this legislation. Let me just talk a little bit about State flexibility because we have received a letter, both the chairmen and ranking members of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Education and the Workforce from the American Public Human Services Association, which is a bipartisan group of welfare directors around the United States complimenting us on the flexibility in this bill for things like improving and continuing the whole idea of a TANF block grant contingency fund; removing the restrictions on unobligated TANF funds; excluding child care and transportation from the definition of assistance; creating State rainy day funds for unobligated funds under this bill; continuing the transfer of 30 percent to the child care development block grant; restoring full transfer to the social services block grant; and maintaining the TANF block grant free from set-asides.”