Angie Craig: “we are debating welfare reform. It is critical to our country that we do this and revitalize it. It is a major piece of…”

“we are debating welfare reform. It is critical to our country that we do this and revitalize it. It is a major piece of legislation that has been very successful over the years, getting people out of welfare into a productive job in our economy. I don't know who the historian was who once said it. He was an economist and a historian. He said, The greatest form of welfare in the world is a good job in the private sector--we know that to be a fact--a good well-paying job. When you cannot find that, welfare in our country is that safety net we have designed and defined for those who truly need it, but recognizing that it is not a place to stay; it is a place to catch you if you fall, to help you, and to provide for you and your family, but only in the temporary form so we can get people off of welfare and back out into the private sector and into a job. In a few moments, the Senator from Massachusetts is going to talk about jobs and level of pay in those jobs. I thought for just a few moments it would be appropriate as we talk about welfare and as we talk about jobs and how much we pay for jobs as a minimum wage, that we ought to talk about job creation in this country and how critically important it is. Some have said our recovery out of this recession has been jobless. Well, that is not true.…”