Nick Smith said "look, most of the American people know that our welfare programs are not working. They have been successful in transferring money, and in the process they have taken away the self-respect, in many cases they have taken away the eagerness for those individuals to get up every morning and go to work and be a contributor to society. Mr. Speaker, can we imagine any American family going to their young teenage daughter and saying, ``I want to talk to you about individual responsibility and pregnancy''; and then they say, ``If you get pregnant, we are going to increase your allowance by $500 a month, give you a separate place to live, and give you a food allowance''? We would never do that as individual families, yet our society does that. It has got to change. My Governor, John Engler, has come to this administration for waivers. Governor Thompson of Wisconsin has come in for waivers. Let us change welfare as we know it." @ PoliticalQuotes.com

On the recordMay 30, 1996

look, most of the American people know that our welfare programs are not working. They have been successful in transferring money, and in the process they have taken away the self-respect, in many cases they have taken away the eagerness for those individuals to get up every morning and go to work and be a contributor to society. Mr. Speaker, can we imagine any American family going to their young teenage daughter and saying, ``I want to talk to you about individual responsibility and pregnancy''; and then they say, ``If you get pregnant, we are going to increase your allowance by $500 a month, give you a separate place to live, and give you a food allowance''? We would never do that as individual families, yet our society does that. It has got to change. My Governor, John Engler, has come to this administration for waivers. Governor Thompson of Wisconsin has come in for waivers. Let us change welfare as we know it.

Said by

Nick Smith

Republican · Michigan

Source

govinfo.gov

Editor's note · Context

Addressing the need for welfare reform and its impact on personal responsibility.

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