James M. Talent: “Let us look at this system that Governor Thompson and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Wisconsin is trying to…”

“Let us look at this system that Governor Thompson and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Wisconsin is trying to change. Let us look at what this system has given us. In the immediate postwar era, Mr. Speaker, welfare in this country was taken care of, basically, by localities and private charities backed up by State resources. Let us look at how that worked. In 1948, the poverty rate was about 30 percent. It declined steadily in the postwar era until in 1965, it reached 15 percent. What happened in 1965? The Federal Government declared war on poverty. Now, the national impulse to help the poor was a good thing, but here is how the Federal Government did it. It conditioned assistance on people neither working nor getting married, and the two best antipoverty programs, the way people typically got out of poverty, is by work and by marriage. In effect, what the Government did over a period of about 30 years was take away kids' dads and give them Government instead. We did not get a reduction in poverty. The poverty rate was 15 percent in 1965, trillions of dollars later, it is still 15 percent. What we got was an explosion in the out-of-wedlock birth rate. That is the system that Governor Thompson is trying to change. What is he trying to do about it? He is trying to replace this failed system that nobody will defend, that nobody wants to even be close to defending.”