Roger Wicker: “I think I can attest, Mr. Speaker, to the difficulty we had at the State level prior to 1996 in enacting meaningful…”

“I think I can attest, Mr. Speaker, to the difficulty we had at the State level prior to 1996 in enacting meaningful welfare reform at that level. God knows we tried and we tried to do our best, but we did not have the flexibility that we needed and that the 1996 Act has brought. We were forced into going individually on a case-by-case, law-by-law basis to the Federal Government for what we called a waiver, and hoping that we could get the department, in both Republican and Democrat administrations, to agree to those particular waivers. It just simply did not give us the flexibility that we needed. Also, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there was not the solid commitment to a work requirement prior to the 1996 Act.”