Gilbert Gutknecht: “For 40 years the answer to poverty and welfare in this country was to build bigger bureaucracies, to take more money…”

“For 40 years the answer to poverty and welfare in this country was to build bigger bureaucracies, to take more money away from working families and redistribute it through a complicated welfare system that was created and run here in Washington. The bureaucracy got bigger, and we actually saw an increase in poverty. The real tragedy of the welfare system was not that it cost too much money. The tragedy is that it created too much dependency. Once again we could see the examples, we could see the victims all around us. I think the American people, as is so often the case, were way out in front of us and they said: You have got to change this system. It is just wrong. What we are doing is creating dependency. We are creating more illegitimacy. We are creating less hope. And as you said earlier, when you reach that point where you have no hope, I think that is saddest indictment of all. So some of us said we have got to reform this welfare system, and that Washington does not necessarily know best.”