James M. Talent: “on March 21, the House will take up comprehensive, real and historic welfare reform. The object of that bill will be an…”

“on March 21, the House will take up comprehensive, real and historic welfare reform. The object of that bill will be an historic and fundamental change in the direction of our welfare policy, away from a failed system that is destroying the poor and towards a system of relief and a system of relief and assistance that is based on marriage, on family, on work and on personal responsibility. Mr. Speaker, how is the welfare system hurting the poor? First and foremost, it is destroying their families. Let us take a look at this graph here on my left. In 1965, Mr. Speaker, one out of 15 children in the United States, about 6 percent, were born out of wedlock. Federal and State welfare spending at that time was about 30 billion. Today the out-of-wedlock birth rate is one out of three. It has increased by six times since 1965. The welfare spending has gone up 10 times to about $300 billion a year. Welfare spending has not brought us a decrease in poverty, as I will show in a minute. It has caused an explosion in illegitimacies. The best social studies also agree. A controlled study in New Jersey showed that a small restriction in the growth of welfare benefits caused a 30 percent reduction in illegitimacy. And June O'Neill, who is the current head of the Congressional Budget Office, conducted a study showing that a 50 percent increase in AFDC and food stamps led to a 43 percent increase in the out-of-wedlock birth rate.”